The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff teed off its first-ever appearance in an NCAA men's golf regional tournament Monday, but when the first round ended, the Golden Lions found they had some serious ground to make up.
Seeded the last of 14 teams, UAPB shot 25-over par as a team at the Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club in Norman, Okla. That's 16 strokes behind the 13th-place team, Louisiana, and 35 behind leader and tournament favorite Texas Tech.
Li Su, Ismael Garcia and Jaime Moliner all shot 5-over 77 -- all tying for 63rd individually -- to lead the Golden Lions, the Southwestern Athletic Conference champions. SWAC medalist Patrick Mwendapole shot 10-over and Angel Perez turned in a 13-over 85. In team scoring, the lowest score is not counted.
Six teams shot under par: Texas Tech (10-under), Oklahoma (9-under), Alabama (7-under), Duke (5-under), Colorado (4-under) and North Florida (3-under). Kansas is even-par, with Louisiana State (4-over), Ole Miss (5-over), Princeton (5-over), Wake Forest (6-over), North Carolina-Wilmington (8-over) and Louisiana (9-over) ahead of UAPB.
Nick Dunlap of Alabama and Drew Goodman of Oklahoma lead the individual leaderboard at 6-under, with Ludvig Aberg of Texas Tech one stroke back and Ben Lorenz of Oklahoma and Will King of Kansas tied for 4-under.
The second and third rounds are today and Wednesday. The top five teams and best individual not associated with those teams will advance to the NCAA finals.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly indicated how many individuals from non-qualifying teams advance to the NCAA finals.