PROVO, Utah — Freshman Sam Choi of The University of New Mexico men’s golf team finished day one tied for fifth out of 90 competitors after two rounds of the PING Cougar Classic hosted by BYU on Friday. The Lobos completed the day in fourth place out of 15 squads after chopping off four strokes between round one and round two.
Choi carded a two under, 70 in round one followed by a four under, 68 in round two to bring his combined total to a six under, 138. The freshman leads the team and is tied for first overall in birdies as his five in the first round and seven in the second gave him 12 on the day. Choi also leads the team in par-3 scoring as his average of 2.75 (-2) is tied for second in the competition.
Trailing by just three strokes was senior Sean Carlon who shot a three under, 141 after seeing a seven-stoke improvement between his round-one score of 74 (+2) and his round-two score of 67 (-5). Carlon tripled his birdie count between the two rounds as he posted six in round two after seeing just two in round one. Carlon improved 38 spots on the leaderboard between rounds to tie for 13th going into round three.
Sophomore Galven Green shot a one under, 143 over the first 36 holes to finish tied for 20th. Green was the only Lobo to card an eagle on the day, which he registered on hole five in round one.
Redshirt-sophomore Ross Sinclair and senior Augustin Holé each shot a one over, 145 to finish tied for 33rd. Sinclair led the squad in both par-4 scoring and in pars as he averaged 3.90 on par-4s and registered 25 pars on the day to tie for fifth in the category.
Freshman Ignacio Arcaya, who is competing as an individual for New Mexico, saw a two-stoke improvement between rounds as he finished the day six over, 150, tying for 60th. Arcaya is second for UNM in pars as he registered 24 over his two rounds of work.
Four Lobos posted an average of 4.50 (-4) on par-5s (Carlon, Choi, Green and Holé) to each tie for third in par-5 scoring.
As a team, UNM is in fourth out of 15 squads with a score of 284 (-4) in round one followed by a 280 (-8) in round two to bring its combined total to a 12 under, 564. The Lobos are tied for first in par-5 scoring with an average of 4.63 (-15) and are second across the competition in birdies (39). New Mexico sits between two Mountain West opponents as Boise State leads the Lobos by one stroke with a 563 (-13) and Colorado State trails by one with a 565 (-11).
Denver holds first place after two rounds as it is shooting 18 under, 558 while having two individuals in the top-10. Host BYU sits closely behind in second with a score of 560 (-16) as it is responsible for the individual leader Peter Kuest who holds a score of 14 under, 130.
The third and final round of the PING Cougar Classic is set to tee off on Saturday at 8:00 a.m. Live stats are available via GolfStat. Click HERE for live stats.