 Photo provided by Sports Information
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by ROB JENKINS
Sports Editor
Casey Johnson shot rounds of 69, 67 and 71 to score his first victory of the fall season Sept. 15 at the Spring Hill Suites Intercollegiate in Florence, S.C.
“[In the] first two rounds I played good. [The] last day, I just struggled and never really got anything going,” Johnson said.
Johnson finished tied at 9-under-par with Jayson Judy of Elon, but both were crowned champion because the tournament did not have a playoff.
Johnson credited the win to his ability to drive the ball well off the tee.
“That was the best I’ve ever driven the ball,” Johnson said. “I drove it incredible.”
Coach Bill Dicus said Johnson was averaging drives of 320 yards.
Johnson believed he missed some opportunities to shoot a lower number.
“In the
second round, I missed two 3-footers for birdie,” he said. “I missed a
bunch of birdie putts from 20 feet, but I don’t make too many of those.”
Dicus commented on how Johnson’s short game contributed to his success at the tournament.
“The
strongest part of [Johnson’s] game is his iron play,” Dicus said. “He
just happens to be driving the ball extremely well right now. But
whenever I think of [him], I think of his strengths as if he’s got a
middle iron or short iron in his hands, there’s a good chance he’s
going to be inside 10 feet for birdie.
As a team, the Mountaineers finished in ninth place in the event.
“We
played pretty bad in the first round,” Johnson said. “In the second and
third rounds we played good; I mean, we actually played like we should.
In the first round, everyone was a little bit nervous; you know, first
tournament of the year, first round, it’s early. After we got loosened
up a little bit and got the jitters out, everybody kind of started
getting in a rhythm.”
Dicus believes this may be a good year for the squad because of their experience.
“We’ve
got two fourth year players and a third year player in our top four,”
Dicus said. “This is a year that we should be able to rely on some
experience. If we don’t have a good year I’ll be very disappointed,
because it won’t be for lack of experience.
“We have guys that have played and matured and gotten better over the years, so we should be OK.”
Dicus
said he thinks that men’s golf will be one of the strongest sports
nationally for the Southern Conference this year. He believes
Chattanooga and Georgia Southern will be the best teams in the
conference.
“[Chattanooga
and Georgia Southern] are the only two teams I see that if we play how
we should play, and they play how they should play, they should
probably beat us,” he said. “So a successful year for us [will be
either] third, fourth or fifth [in the SoCon]. Anything below that is
certainly not successful.”
Johnson believes he can win two more tournaments this season. Dicus agrees, and thinks he has the ability to win even more.
“If the
best player wins every tournament, he’s going to win more than that,”
Dicus said. “But on any given weekend, you don’t know who might just
play well. [Johnson will win] two or three [more tournaments this
season].”
Tournament team results—top 5:
1. Georgia Southern
2. Western Carolina
3. South Carolina-Aiken
4. Furman
t5. James Madison
t5. Elon
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