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NEWS, NOTES &
COMMENTARY
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The Bradsher Beat
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
By Bethany Bradsher |
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ECU golf program on the rise
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| Press McPhaul |
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| Harold Varner |
| (ECU SID
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By
Bethany Bradsher
©2010 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
As his team pulled away
from the Kilmarlic Golf Club after a record-setting victory at the OBX
Intercollegiate on Tuesday, East Carolina golfer Harold Varner leaned in to
head coach Press McPhaul and asked him, “How many days until our next
tournament?”
The answer might not be
welcome to a team so hot that it broke ECU’s three-round scoring record by
15 strokes en route to defeating 17 other teams for the OBX trophy. But the
schedule says they have a break until Jan. 31, so McPhaul did the math and
answered: “96 days.”
“OK,” Varner announced.
“So we take off Christmas, and that means we have 95 days to get better.”
That’s the kind of
confidence and drive that make McPhaul sure he is staring down a special
spring season — with a group that has worked uncommonly hard and is finally
figuring out how to translate that effort into a series of successful
rounds.
“The guys, even last
summer were really starting to gain confidence and show a lot of
consistency,” said McPhaul, who is in his fifth season at the helm of the
Pirates. “We played 12 rounds competitively this fall, and five of those
rounds have been the low round of the day of the tourney."
The Pirates’ two previous
tournaments, at Virginia Commonwealth and N.C. State, were a portent of
their triumph at the Outer Banks, because in both events ECU led after the
first round but wasn't able to hold the edge.
“It’s been coming
together, and this time it all kind of clicked,” he said. “Actually, we shot
the low round of the day each day this week. We got a lead and expanded it
each day. They just kept their foot on the gas the whole time.”
The pacesetter for the
Pirates was junior Harold Varner, who placed first in the tournament over
some 80 other competitors. Like his team, Varner didn’t win small,
prevailing over second-place golfer Matthew Broome of Furman by nine
strokes. He also set his own ECU record for a three-day tournament, with his
composite score of 196 besting the previous record-holder — Jonathan Hill in
2002 — by five strokes.
The other four Pirates
who contributed to the tournament victory were David Watkins, Ryan Eibner,
Zach Edmondson and Warren Straub, and one prevailed through tough rounds to
contribute to ECU’s record-breaking performance. Straub, the squad’s only
senior, birdied three of his last four holes on Monday afternoon to provide
the team a vital boost.
It was the first multiday
tournament win for Varner, but he is a perennial high finisher who has been
poised for a breakout win for the past year, McPhaul said. Over one stretch
of nine holes — his last five on Sunday and his first four on Monday —
Varner shot seven birdies, an eagle and a par.
“He’s so talented,”
McPhaul said. “He just needed a break, and he needed to figure out that he
could actually do it.”
Varner, who was a
second-team All-Conference USA selection and won an at-large bid for the
NCAA East Regional in the spring, said that he and his teammates have just
needed enough time at the top of the leaderboard to feel like they belonged
there. And when they pack up their clubs for the Jacksonville (FL)
Invitational at the end of January, Varner is confident that they will prove
to the field there that they are capable of more than just one resounding
win.
“I think we got nervous,
because we hadn’t been in contention much,” Varner said. “But as we’re in
contention more, we’re going to get more used to it. I think everybody knows
we can compete with anyone now.”
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