This was probably not the start to the spring season that the men’s golf team had hoped for. The team finished in 14th place out of 16 teams and when the tournament ended they were 76 strokes behind tournament winner South Carolina-Aiken. BG finished with a disappointing score of 973 compared to SC-Aiken’s 897. ‘I never thought it would turn out that way,’ said BG coach Garry Winger. ‘We worked hard all winter and to have it turn out like that is disappointing’-especially because we practiced in something that we haven’t had in ten years [in reference to the new Falcon Golf Training Facility].’ The Falcons high team scores for the tournament can be determined just by looking at the amount of individual rounds in the 80’s. Of the 15 individual rounds that the Falcons played over the three rounds of the tournament, only three of those were in the 70’s. The final round also saw no Falcon golfer break into the 70’s ‘For not one person to break 80 in the final round is very telling to me,’ Winger said. ‘Maybe it’s not the course to start out on for us.’ Winger alluded to the fact the narrowness of the course with out of bounds coming into play on just about every hole may have played a big part in the high scores. Freshman Parker Hewit was responsible for two of those rounds in the 70’s by posting a 78 in the first round and a 76 in the second round. Hewit closed out the tournament with an 81 in round three and finished the tournament with a score of 235 good for 35th place. Drew Preston, another freshman tallied the other low Falcon round for the tournament by posting a 78 in round two. ‘I’m going to take the blame for this one,’ Winger said of the team’s performance in general. ‘We worked so hard in there and forgot about the other aspects of the game’-I should have prepared the team better.’ Preston and junior Matt Schneider each finished in a tie for 58th place by posting a score of 245 over the course of the three rounds. Rounding out the Falcon scoring were Bryan Mitchell (249) and Chad Walker (256) who finished in a tie for 67th place and 76th place respectively. Roberto Diaz from South Carolina-Aiken won the individual portion of the tournament by posting a score two under par score of 214 for the three round tournament. One factor for the poor performance of the team may have been the absence of the injured John Powers’-who was rated as the 4th best golfer in the MAC during the fall season. ‘I do know that we need John Powers and we need John Powers in the lineup,’ Winger said. ‘But given the scores out there, one player was not going to make a difference.’ Powers is still recovering from a broken wrist sustained during the off-season. Winger noted that Powers was held out of the lineup because the junior was unable to generate any power in his swing until Tuesday. The coach also said that Powers had experienced soreness Sunday and Monday. The Falcons will look to shake this one off and get back to playing quality tournaments as they had to Palmas Del Mar Humacao, Puerto Rico to compete in the 2009 Palmas Del Mar Humacao Invitational which is schedule to take place over spring break from March 9-11.