For the third consecutive tournament redshirt junior Patrick Nagle finished in the top ten for the Illini. Nagle finished this week’s tournament at the par 72, 6,950-yard TPC of Myrtle Beach with a 54-hole score of 218, two over par for the competition. After shooting a one-under par 71 in each of his first two rounds, Nagle closed out his weekend with a 76 in the final round to finish eighth overall.

“Nagle is bringing together all the different facets of his game,” said Coach Mike Small. “It’s all coming together at once for him and we’re seeing that on the course.”

Nagle was definitely the bright spot in what was a disappointing weekend for the Fighting Illini. After finishing strong a couple of weeks ago in Puerto Rico against possibly the strongest field Illinois will face all year, the team followed it up with a mediocre performance this week.

“We looked good in Puerto Rico, I think we just had a down week and were unfortunate that everyone played poorly on the last day,” Nagle said.

The Illini finished in fourteenth place out of fifteen teams. They carded a team score of 908, finishing a full 41 shots behind East Tennessee State who won the tournament.

Senior Blair Harkins put up the second best score for Illinois. He finished tied for 34th place with a score of 226. Sophomore Frank Alafoginis, who competed as an individual, also tied for 34th at 226. Sophomore Mark Ogren finished up just one shot behind Harkins and Alafoginis, tying for 41st with a 227.

Sophomore Danny Zimmerman and junior Kyle Hosick also competed for the Illini.

“This was not a good weekend, but I’m confident these guys will take it personally and come back from it,” Small said.

Indeed Illinois had to keep some pretty big numbers this week, especially during the final round when the team shot a 311 counting two 78’s and a 79.

Small switched the lineup a bit this week to get some other guys an opportunity to step up. The new group looked great early but just couldn’t hold it together.

Illinois was in heated competition for the top spot in the field for their first 15 holes before the whole team seemingly fell apart at once.

“We had too many guys going in the wrong direction on the same day.” Small said.

He commented that the team dive might have had something to do with teammates talking to each other on the course and getting down at the same time. However, Small believes that the team just needs to work on playing through the unfortunate times by keeping their heads up and getting back on track.

Illinois will be practicing this week in preparation for a spring break trip to North Carolina where they will play on another difficult course at Pinehurst.

“We are not very familiar with the course at Pinehurst,” Small said. “It should be a good test for us, we need to get outside and get some work in.”