No. 21 Arkansas and TCU shared the lead after the first round of the NCAA men's golf championships on Friday in Eugene, Ore.
The Razorbacks and Horned Frogs, who were both among the 15 teams with morning tee times, shot 2-over par 282 to lead the 30-team field.
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No. 3 Southern California, No. 8 Vanderbilt and No. 22 San Diego State all shot 3-over par.
"I was very pleased with our play today. We drove the ball extremely well all day and limited our mistakes," Arkansas Coach Brad McMakin said. "We have a lot of golf left, but I'm proud of where our players have positioned us after round one."
Some of the nation's top teams struggled on the opening day. No. 1 Stanford finished its afternoon round at 12 over and in a tie for 24th place, while SEC champion and No. 6 Georgia was tied for 21st. No. 2 Texas was at 9 over and tied for 13th and No. 4 Illinois was 10 over and in a tie for 17th.
Kolton Crawford, playing in the fifth spot in the lineup, paced the Razorbacks with a 2-under 68 that left the senior tied for fourth place in the medalist hunt. Crawford had birdies on Nos. 4, 8, 10 and 15, and posted bogeys on 9 and 11.
Vanderbilt's Theo Humphrey, San Diego State's Nahum Mendoza III and South Carolina's Will Starke were tied for the lead at 3 under.
Arkansas senior Taylor Moore shot par on all nine holes on the back nine and finished the round at even-par 70, tied for 16th. Senior Nicolas Echavarria and sophomore Alvaro Ortiz were both 2 over, and freshman Charles Kim posted the team's non-counting score with a 3-over 73.
The Razorbacks, plagued by bad starts at the SEC Championships and the NCAA Kohler (Wis.) Regional, led the first pack of teams by as many as three strokes midway through the back nine.
Florida State's Cristobal Del Solar had the day's highlight with a hole-in-one on the par-3, 192-yard 14th hole.
Arkansas will tee off at 2:42 p.m. today with playing partners South Carolina and Oregon from the No. 10 tee.
After three rounds of stroke play the field will be cut to 15 teams for one more round Monday. The field will be cut afterward to eight teams for match play.
Sports on 05/28/2016