The young ETSU golf team turned in a disappointing 13th-place finish in the 15-team Carpet Capital Collegiate Classic in Rocky Face, Ga., last weekend.
“We didn’t play particularly well,” said head coach Fred Warren, whose Bucs shot a collective 915, 51-over par and 57 shots behind champion Georgia Tech, who parlayed their home course into the only sub-par score of the entire field. “They just lapped the field.”
One bright spot for the Bucs was the play of freshman Marco Trejos, who shot an opening round 63 and finished in a tie for 17th with a four-over 220.
“I’m very pleased with Marco’s performance,” Warren said.
“It felt good being the best on the team,” added Trejos, who hails from San Jose, Costa Rica.
That mantle had been held by fellow foreign freshman Cennydd Mills, a Welshman, in the first two tournaments this year. He was third amongst Bucs this time, finishing at 18-over, in a 59th-place tie.
Junior Adam Riddering finished four shots better than Mills, placing him in a tie for 54th.
The only other non-freshman on the team, James Johnson checked in at 19 over par, leaving him alone in 63rd, and Jeremy Hobson tied for 73rd at 29-over, only one shot better than the last name on the leaderboard.
“I just think we’ve got a very young team,” Trejos said.
“We’re capable of playing better,” Warren said of his squad, who now head to Durham, N.C., this weekend for the Duke Classic, their third tournament in as many weeks.
Trejos added that he thought if the Bucs could eliminate all of the double and triple bogeys that have plagued them this year, the team scores would improve by as many as 10 strokes per round.
Regardless, one factor with which all teams had to deal was cold and windy weather that moved in for the final round.
Nearly everyone’s scores inflated in conditions inclement enough to force Warren, for one, to don four layers of clothing.
One player, however, who did not seem too daunted by the conditions was U.S. Amateur Champion Bubba Dickerson of Florida, who mirrored his first round two-over 74 in the final round to improve his position to a tie for 14th.
During Dickerson’s best round of the tournament, a second round 71, he was paired with Trejos.
“That’s always great for a young player,” Warren said of the twosome.
Trejos was impressed with the Dickerson’s concentration and said his play indeed inspired him to give his best, as the freshman finished but two strokes behind him for those 18 holes.
Even the mighty Dickerson, though, was no match for Yellow Jackets, who finished 10 strokes better than second-place Tennessee.
“They had a big home-course advantage,” Trejos said about The Farm Golf Club. “Around the greens it’s a very strategic course.”
That was a change up from the previous weekend at the Scarlet Course in Columbus, Ohio, where the greens played easier, but the fairways were narrow and long, Trejos said.

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