The Carpet Capital Tournament is one of the most prestigious and toughest tournaments to win. Hosted by Georgia Tech, it includes 18 teams, a dozen of which came into this year’s tournament on the Top 25.
Georgia Tech is ranked No. 1 in the nation finishing no lower than third in any tournament this year. The University of Georgia, New Mexico and Auburn are ranked 3, 4, and 5.
The course, which was playing 7,010 yards, was even longer due to rains that soaked the course earlier in the week. The tournament had already been postponed in September due to a soaked course when Hurricane Ivan came through.
For the ETSU men’s team all this led to a pretty good end of the fall season. On Sunday the Bucs received one of their best finishes of the year, winning the individual honors and finishing fourth as a team.
After Friday’s round the Bucs were just 15 strokes off the lead finishing with a 17 over par 305 for a 10th place finish on Friday.
At the end of Saturday’s round the Bucs showed much improvement firing a 295 and moving up two places into eighth place but was still 16 strokes back of the lead. In both rounds the Bucs were led by Rhys Davies. With a 2 over par finish on Friday Davies tied for 18th before improving in Saturday’s round with a 2- under par, finishing in third.
Cian McNamara and Cennydd Mills also helped the Bucs in the first round. Both tied for 27th in Friday’s round. In Saturday’s round Steve Arnold made major improvements, after firing a disappointing 79 in the first round Arnold took a 71, one under par into the clubhouse to tie for 16 after two rounds. Unfortunately Arnold had to sit out Sunday’s final round.
Mills finished the second round in a tie for 50 after finishing with a 78 on Saturday. McNamara finished up his second round tying with Lance Goodson from Vanderbilt for 67th.
In Sunday’s final round the average score improved by more than two strokes going from 77.49 in the first round on Friday to 75.28 in Sunday’s final round.
That didn’t help Georgia and their lead. Even though they didn’t shoot their worst round on Sunday the 4-over 292 they shoot gave Wake Forest quite an opportunity at the lead.
Led by McNamara and Mills the day was great for the Bucs. The Bucs shot a 292 on Sunday, their low score for the tournament, and good enough for the Bucs to finish fourth.
McNamara made a great run at the lead on some of the hardest holes. Between the 12th and 16th holes McNamara was able to eagle a hole and get three birdies in a row to help McNamara improve his standing to a tie for 51.
Mills also had a good day firing four birdies in the final round to also improve himself to tie at 32nd.
Davies was able to capture his first top individual honors at ETSU. Nearly an hour after heading into the clubhouse in fourth, Davies emerged as the winner as the back nine of the course took its affect on the leaders. Two of the back nine holes 16 and 17 were on the top 5 hardest for the day. No. 17 was the toughest hole on the course Sunday averaging 4.57 strokes for the par 4 while No. 16 was not far back with average strokes of 4.36 as another par 4.
Davies has already competed in two international events since coming to ETSU. Last weekend he played in the World Amateur Team Championship for his home country Wales where he finished tied for 25th.
Also playing at this weekend’s tournament was New Mexico University’s Spencer Levin, who is cureently holding the No. 1 ranking in the country.
Levin who played for the U.S. and finished second individually, helped lead the USA to a team victory in team competition.
The tournament has been played around the world including St. Andrews Golf Course. Every two years a new course is chosen to host the event. In 2006 the Championships will be played at the Stellenbosch Golf Club and DeZalze Golf Course near Cape Town, South Africa.

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