DECATUR - The Carthage College men's golf team returned to action at the Butts Classic, hosted by Millikin, finishing third out of 14 teams. The Firebirds posted a three-round total of 886 (+22), carding scores of 289, 296, and 301 over two days of competition. Carthage placed two golfers inside the top 10, as James Tyrrell tied for fourth and Brett Vandergrift finished in a tie for seventh.


Tyrrell paced the Firebirds with a fourth-place finish, carding rounds of 70, 76, and 72 for a total score of 218 (+2). Close behind, Vandergrift tied for seventh place with rounds of 70, 74, and 78, finishing at 222 (+6). Tayt Hager tied for 15th place with a total score of 224 (+8), recording rounds of 74, 70, and 80. Nick Barry placed in a tie for 35th at 229 (+13), highlighted by rounds of 75, 81, and 73. Rounding out the Firebirds' lineup, Ethan Frasch tied for 45th place with a score of 234 (+18), carding rounds of 80, 76, and 78.

Carthage also had two individuals compete. Jacob Jenkins tied for 49th place with rounds of 78, 82, and 81 for a total of 235 (+22), while Joey Luna tied for 61st place, posting rounds of 77, 76, and 79 for a total of 238 (+19).


"In the fall, we made a program-wide commitment to big improvement goals on the greens," said head coach Jay Christiansen. "We basically doubled the amount of practice time we spend on putting. Within the last 6 weeks, using statistical data from this fall and the past 3 seasons, we made a very focused,  dedicated commitment to learning how to play much more from the fairways. We like to see ourselves as big hitters off the tee, but as we grip and rip, the tee shots can get a bit crooked. We were just giving away too many strokes from the rough, chipping out of the trees, and taking penalties for the water or out of bounds. Since the spring season started, our putting data has spiked impressively, and in these past three tournaments, the stats say we have almost doubled how often we find the fairway off the tee. I don't think it is hard to connect the dots, as our scores this past month have suddenly started matching our skills, and when you look at our recent invitational results, we have suddenly moved much closer to the upper echelon of the midwestern D3 teams. The hard work is truly showing up, and our results in the Butts Classic were by far the result of our most complete performance of the season. Playing 36 holes on Monday, our first opportunity to do that in a tournament this year, was a great test. That's over nine hours of the mental grind. The first 18 of the day, shooting a team score of 1 over par, was our best round of the year, and put us a stroke out of first. On the second 18, as we battled mental fatigue, I was still impressed by our maturation, and we hung near the top of the leaderboard. On day 2, the final 18 of the 54-hole tournament, it became a different test as the winds cranked up to a constant 20-30 mph. The scores across the board went up, as one would expect, but we were still quite solid and locked in mentally. Even though our scores were a touch higher, I was every bit as proud of how we performed. The Country Club of Decatur is a fantastic course, a test to the very best golfers, and we showed we could ace the test. We got beat by IWU, who finished second in the NCAA Championship last May, and returned their entire top five. We will see them soon in the CCIW Championship, and I think we are getting close."


The Firebirds will be back in action on Saturday, April 25, at the Wartburg Women's Spring Golf Invitational. For more information, visit our athletics.carthage.edu.