The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/7/09 Section: Sports

SWAFFORD

For the first 17 holes of the second round at the U.S. Collegiate, Georgia men's golf coach Chris Haack was feeling great about his team.

The Bulldogs were climbing the leaderboard steadily after a poor opening day, and appeared to be on course for a strong finish.

And then the 18th hole reared its ugly head, getting the best of Brian Harman and Hudson Swafford to the tune of a double and triple bogey, respectively.

"Harman laid it up into the water, which was obviously something you don't ever do," Haack said. "If you're going to lay it up you lay up, and he hit it too far and laid it up into the water and then compounded the problem with a poor wedge shot in there so he put himself in a bad spot where he three putted ... And then Hudson, I didn't see him play the 18th but if he made 8, I probably didn't want to see him make 8. Anytime you make 8 it's probably not very good decision-making."

Despite the Bulldogs' final hole miscues, they are still in the hunt in fourth place at 11-over-par, just 11 shots back of leader Stanford.

"Me and Brian kind of struggled right there toward the end, but all in all, I think we played really well today, and we had one of the best team scores today," Swafford said. "We're a little ways back, but on this golf course, anything can happen."

With windy, cold conditions expected again on the difficult Golf Club of Georgia in Alpharetta, the Dogs should have plenty of opportunities to come back in the final round, especially if they can avoid the big numbers that have plagued them each of the first two days.

"Well, obviously I'd like to be a lot closer to the lead, but the conditions are supposed to be fairly similar tomorrow, maybe colder," Haack said.

Senior Adam Mitchell leads the Dogs individually in 10th place at 1-over-par for the tournament after shooting a second-round 71. Harman appeared on pace for one of the best rounds of the tournament, as he was 3-under-par on the day, before doubling the 18th, leaving him in a tie for 11th individually at 2-over-par.

"Both of those guys played pretty good to shoot under par in very tough conditions," Haack said. "It was very cold and very windy, so anything even par or better was going to be a great round today and because of that, it was a good round."

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