GULFPORT – In one of the toughest challenges of their season so far, the #15 Northwest Mississippi Community College men's golf team picked up a 10th place finish on the road at the Charles Cooper Classic, hosted by Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College at Windance Country Club.
The field included 18 total teams ranging from Mississippi and Alabama to Texas and Oklahoma, giving the Rangers their biggest depth of field since the start of the season at the NJCAA level.
"The golf course was set up really hard with tucked pins, and you had to be methodical about how you attacked things," Head Coach Adam Payne said.
The Rangers finished the 54-hole tournament at 57-over, going 21-over on the first round before closing with back-to-back rounds of 18-over. They finished as the fourth-best team total for a Mississippi school in the field, only trailing Gulf Coast, which won the tournament at 15-over, East Central Community College (T6th), and Meridian Community College (8th).
Northwest finished 10 strokes ahead of Jones College in 13th place and 11 strokes ahead of Hinds Community College in 14th.
On the individual side of things, Atharv Sharma, who entered the tournament as the 15th-ranked golfer in the nation, showed his consistency, getting steadily better every round after opening with a five-over 77 on the first 18, where he only managed to make one birdie in the round. He rallied in the afternoon on Monday to post a one-over 73 that included a pair of birdies and carried him into a fantastic start to the final round, at one point finding himself at 5-under through 11 holes.
"He did a really good job of picking where he needed to be and how to attack the hole," Payne said. "We knew that we were close coming in to possibly being on the all-tournament team, and we knew we needed a few more, so we pushed the envelope a little bit and probably made some mistakes, but it was because we were hot and trying to get a little bit hotter."
The push up the leaderboard was thwarted by aggressive play to try to make the all-tournament team, and he would finish the round at even par after bogeys on five of the last seven holes, closing the tournament in a tie for 19th at six-over.
Cole Elander is also continuing to have a strong season, finishing at nine-over and in 24th place by himself. After posting an up-and-down first 18 with a six-over 78, Elander rolled off a one-over 73 in the afternoon on Monday, picking up a pair of birdies early before seeing the par fives betray him, going two-over on them on the back nine.
On the final day, four more birdies were waiting for him, but a double on the second hole and three bogeys early in his round would keep him from being able to go low, and he had to settle for a two-over 74.
"He is just really steady. I thought he adjusted well to what you could and couldn't do on the golf course," Payne said. "When you are playing smart golf, you give yourself a good opportunity to shoot good scores."
It was a tougher tournament for the rest of the Rangers in the field. Caesar Ingendorf, who entered as the 21st-ranked golfer in the nation, would put three double bogeys on the board in his opening 18 holes on the way to a five-over 77. That luck wouldn't change in the second 18 of the day, and the German sophomore would see three doubles and two triple bogeys in the afternoon counter the four birdies he picked up, and a nine-over 81 was the end result.
Ingendorf opened with a birdie on the final round of the tournament, but unfortunately, he would quad-bogey the 14th hole on the way to a five-over start, and his seven-over 79 on the final day wouldn't allow him to make any major moves up the leaderboard, finishing in a tie for 65th.
Cooper Phillips was playing in his first major tournament of the season and saw his rounds shape up much like Ingendorf's, going 12-over on the first day between the two rounds, putting down a 77 on the first followed by a 79 on the second with only three birdies combined.
The final day also saw him struggle with some bigger numbers, going over par on eight holes, with three of them being double-bogeys or worse. The end result was a 12-over 84 and a drop by 22 spots on the leaderboard to a tie for 75th.
Drew Tuccio closed out the field for the Rangers, and while he saw consistent numbers, they unfortunately didn't include a lot of red ones. The freshman didn't pick up any birdies on the first day, going 82-81 on his two rounds. He followed it with another 81 on the final day, picking up a birdie but being thwarted by a run of bogeys on the back nine.
"I think the decision-making and maturity level is the lesson to take away this week," Payne said of two freshmen's experience. "You can make a big number in high school and still bounce back from it, but the margin of error is too small in college, and you can't make a double or a triple and expect to come back through the field. So just learning to be patient and pick your moments."
Northwest has one tournament remaining during the fall season, with action picking up this Monday at the Bobcat Invitational in Laurel. It will be hosted by Jones College at Laurel Country Club as the MACCC tournament season winds down.
"It's an extremely tough golf course, kind of equal to what we just played but with tougher greens," Payne said. "It's a challenge of challenges."
Follow along with the men's and women's golf programs at Northwest by visiting nwccrangers.com or by following along on Ranger social media accounts.
