The Daily Gamecock

Issue date: 2/21/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Courtesy of USC Media Relatons

What has the season been like so far?

Wildly inconsistent. In our first event of the year we lost in a playoff against Alabama, who is one of the best teams in the country. We had a couple of solid events in the fall; a fourth place finish in Macon and an eighth place finish at Isleworth, which had 10 or 11 top 25 teams in the field. We've had events like the Ridges, where we finished 12th, and like Sawgrass, where we finished 11th. We played real well at the match play and made it to the semifinals there before losing to Georgia Tech. So we've had some runs where you say, "this team could be really good," but we've also struggled.

What has led to the disappointments so far?

I think some of it has to do with the fact that my lineup has been hard to solidfy. Florian Fritsch has been in and out of the lineup and then dislocated his kneecap a couple weeks ago. Warren Thomas had a tough fall but he played well this week at Sawgrass. So, the lineup has been in a state of flux.

How do you fix what has been wrong?

I think once the lineup settles down a little bit and I can get the same guys in tournaments, more than one or two at a time, we'll be fine. I can't ask the guys to work any harder. Our theme for the spring was "prepare with intensity," and I've had every kid on the team doing everything that I ask them to do prior to an event. I think that we've got some really high-quality, high-character kids on the team.

I think a big thing is that this is our first event since late October. There was a little bit of rust there, I mean, they've been playing a lot and practicing a lot against each but there is nothing like live competition.

How do you feel about the team's performance?

Team golf is just one of those funny things where you have to get a group of guys playing well together at the same time to be really good. This year in college golf you have quite a bit of parity. When you look at this week at Sawgrass we were five shots out of the top five and we finished 11th. We had what I would consider a down week and finished five shots out of the top five.

We're not that far off. I'm not in any kind of panic mode. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm disappointed because I've seen how well we can play and I know that we have guys on the team that can get it done.

What do you see in your star golfers Mark Anderson and George Bryan IV?

They're consistent. I would say, based on last week, that Warren Thomas is in that group as well.

The thing that separates Mark and George, Warren is heading in that direction, they both have a tremendous short game. They both are decent ball stickers but I would say that week-in-week-out they have an ability to scramble around and handle the adversity of the kind of conditions we see on a regular basis. They don't have to hit the ball perfectly or have everything going their way to score well.

Are there any younger or more unknown players that are trying to step up into a bigger role?

With our team we have some younger guys and then we have a couple guys who are juniors, like Patrick Cunning, who is a redshirt junior. Florian is more likely going to have a good chance to play for us in the spring if his knee is okay to go with. We only have one freshman and he's a walk-on. Allen Koon, Patrick Rada, Paul Woodbury, Baker Elmore and Mark Silvers, these are all guys that are juniors (and sophomores) and sophomores and they are a group that from a talent level they are very close. They just have to battle it out qualifying and then hopefully play well in the tournament and maintain their spot in the lineup.

Looking forward to the rest of the season, what do you expect from this team?

I expect this team to compete for a championship. I think that the experience and the talent is there. I know what we are capable of it based on what we did last spring and how we played at times in the fall. I'm a realist. I understand that coming off an 11th place finish at Sawgrass you can't beat your chest and say we're going to kick everybody's butt. At the same time I've seen this team rebound and come back from situations like this, like we did last spring, and play at the highest level and beat the top teams in the country. That same talent is still here. We didn't lose anybody. The idea with us is we've got to get healthy, get the lineup more solidified and I think we'll have a very good spring.

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