Rough third round drops CU from contention to sixth at Big 12 finals

COLLEGE GOLF

A strong second round at least kept the Colorado men’s golf team in the hunt at the Big 12 Conference championship.

A rough third round all but ended those title dreams for the Buffaloes.

On Wednesday, CU couldn’t continue the momentum it ended with a day earlier, as a collective mark of plus-12 over par in the third round of action at the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla, forced a slide down the team standings.

After finishing the two-round opening day in fourth place, CU dipped to sixth Wednesday with a collective three-round score of plus-33 heading into the final round. The Buffs are three strokes behind fifth-place Kansas State, and are just one stroke ahead of Texas Tech (34 over), three strokes ahead of Arizona (36 over) and four ahead of Cincinnati (37 over).

Oklahoma State used a huge third round — posting a team mark of 4-under par that was the second-best round of the entire tournament so far — to take over the top spot from Arizona State. The Cowboys will go into the fourth round six strokes ahead of the Sun Devils.

CU senior Dylan McDermott finished the two-round opening day in a three-way tie for sixth, but he struggled to maintain that pace in the third round, carding a 6-over 76. It was McDermott’s highest score of the season, replacing the 74 he carded Tuesday. Justin Biwer posted the top mark of the third round for the Buffs, a 1-over 71 in a round that featured two birdies, one bogey and one double-bogey. Brandon Knight backed Biwer with a 2-over 72.

Biwer supplanted McDermott as the Buffs’ leader on the individual leaderboard, finishing the third round in a four-way tie for 14th. McDermott dropped into a tie for 18th.

“Just a tough day overall, but I am still very proud of the competitiveness we are showing and how the guys stayed in it mentally despite not having our best today,” CU head coach Roy Edwards said in a news release.

“Brandon did a great job coming in mid-tournament and provided a bit of a boost. A good round tomorrow will put us in position for a high finish.”

The fourth and final round begins Thursday at 6 a.m. There will be a three-way tie atop the individual leaderboard going into the final round between the Arizona State duo of Connor Williams and Josele Ballester, in addition to Houston’s Wolfgang Glawe.