Clemson in Tie for 12th Place with Notre Dame after First Round of ACC Golf Tournament

CLEMSON, S.C. — Thomas Higgins, Clemson’s only player from Ireland, had an opening round 72 on Thursday to lead the Tigers to a tie for 12th place with the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame after the first round of the ACC Golf Championship at The Club @ Olde Stone in Bowling Green, KY.

Clemson finished with a team score of 294, six over-par, but just three shots off the eight-team cut-line for the match play championship that will begin on Sunday.   This year’s 15-team field will be cut to the top eight teams after stroke play on Saturday night.  Those eight teams will then compete in a single elimination match play tournament to determine the ACC team champion on Monday.

Virginia has the team lead at 10-under-par 278.   The Tigers trail eighth-place Florida State, Stanford and Duke by just three shots.   Florida State is the highest ranked team in the field with a #9 rating according to the clippd.com  computer rankings.

Clemson played the back nine first and shot even-par on that segment of the course, then shot six over par on the front nine, the Tigers second nine of the day.

Higgins, who has the sixth best stroke average on the Clemson team this year, was the Tigers best player on Thursday with his even-par 72 and is in 25th place individually entering the second round on the par 72 course that measures 7,331 yards.   Higgins had nine hole scores of 37-35 and finished with three birdies and three bogeys.

It was just the second time this year Higgins had the best score among Clemson golfers.  Higgins played the par five holes at -2 and the par three holes at even par.  His 3.00 average on par three holes tied for the second best in the 75 player field.

Lucas Augustsson got off to a rough start with a double bogey on his second hole, the par five 11th, but he played the last 16 holes at one-under-par to finish with a one-over-par 73.  He stands in a tie for 33rd entering Friday’s second round.

Senior Kian Rose got his first round off to a good start with a one-under par 35 on the back nine, but he had a triple bogey seven on hole number-one.  He finished with a two over par score of 74 and is in 40th position.

Senior Andrew Swanson, who has been Clemson’s number-one player this year with a 71.50 average, had a 75 on Thursday.  He had two birdies and five bogeys for his opening round.   Swanson expects to make a comeback on Friday as he has had three consecutive top 15 finishes and was playing his best golf of the year entering the ACC Tournament.

Freshman Colin Salema had a four-over-par 76 in his first career ACC Tournament round.  The native of Matthews, NC had a team best 14 pars,  tied for third in the field, but had four bogeys.

Play continues Friday morning with the Tigers playing with Duke and Virginia Tech.  Clemson golfers will off the 10th tee between 10:17 a.m. and 11;01 a.m eastern time.  Live scoring is available on golfstat.com.