Thomas Leads Vols in Opening Round of Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate

Friday, October 18

Alpharetta, Ga | Golf Club of Georgia

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University of Tennessee

Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational

Thomas Leads Vols in Opening Round of Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate

October 18, 2019 | Men's Golf

Leaderboard Coaches Poll Golfweek Poll Gofstat Rankings

Redshirt junior Chip Thomas leads Tennessee on day one with an even par opening round

By: Andy Kovar

ALPHARETTA, Ga. -- The Tennessee men's golf team was led by redshirt junior Chip Thomas in the opening round of the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational Friday.

Entering Saturday's second round, the Vols are tied for 12th as a team, but are only five strokes back of of getting into the top seven on the leaderboard. The bunched up leaderboard will give them an opportunity to surpass some of the nation's top teams in the country.

In that wave of teams sits No. 1 Georgia Tech and No. 2 Wake Forest, who moved to the top of the Coaches Poll on Friday. Tennessee sits just four strokes back of the host Yellow Jackets and five strokes back of the Demon Deacons.

In total, eight top-25 teams are in the field this week at the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational.

Thomas is the lone Vol player inside the top 25 on the individual leaderboard. The Knoxville, Tennessee native carded an even par opening round. He spent the entire day at or one stroke off of even par carding a pair of birdies near the turn.

He is tied for 22nd on the leaderboard and is in search of his third top-25 finish in five starts this season. He sits just five strokes back of the leaders in David Snyder of Stanford and Yuxin Lin of USC.

The other three counted scores for Tennessee are within three strokes of Thomas as senior Rhys Nevin is tied for 33rd (+1), junior Spencer Cross is tied for 43rd and redshirt freshman Bryce Lewis is tied for 55th (+3).

Tennessee will tee off the second round on Saturday at 10:26 a.m. ET with Lewis as the first to tee off. The Vols will be paired with Clemson (+6) as well as individual players. The Tigers are tied with Tennessee for on the team leaderboard.

Coach's Take
On playing in field with a lot of highly ranked teams:
"These are the teams we are going to have to beat if we want to accomplish the goals we have set for our program. The more times we can play them head-to-head the better off we will be." – Coach Brennan Webb

On why the course played tough today:
"The wind was up and they had some difficult pin positions so, you had to play pretty cautiously into the greens." – Coach Brennan Webb

On what will be the difference in moving up tomorrow:
"The weather is going to be pretty bad tomorrow. If we can attack the day with the right attitude, there will be an opportunity to move up a lot of spots." – Coach Brennan Webb

Day One Scores:
Team

1	Pepperdine	-12 (276)
2	Stanford	-5 (283)
3	Duke	-4 (284)
T4	UCLA	-3 (285)
T4	North Carolina	-3 (285)
6	Texas A&M	-2 (286)
T7	Wake Forest	+1 (289)
T7	USC	+1 (289)
9	Georgia Tech	+2 (290)
10	East Tennessee State	+3 (291)
11	TCU	+4 (292)
T12	Tennessee	+6 (294)
T12	Clemson	+6 (294)
14	Virginia	+7 (295)

Tennessee Team

Chip Thomas	T22	72 (E)
Rhys Nevin	T33	73 (+1)
Spencer Cross	T43	74 (+2)
Bryce Lewis	T55	75 (+3)
Hunter Wolcott	T69	77 (+5)

Vols Enter Coaches Poll for First Time this Season
The University of Tennessee men's golf team entered the coaches poll for the first time this season Friday, landing at No. 25.

In a separate poll released by Golfweek earlier this week, the publication had Tennessee slotted at No. 24 in the country.

A third poll, the GolfStat Rankings, which is used for NCAA seeding purposes, first released earlier this week, has Tennessee ranked No. 29 in the country. Last season, the Vols finished No. 33 in the final Golfstat rankings.