The South Carolina men's golf team finished in ninth place at the 2021 Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate tournament in Awendaw, South Carolina this week.
Hootie and the Blowfish, the iconic Carolina-born band, hosts the 16-team tournament. This was South Carolina's sixteenth appearance at Bulls Bay. The team won the team title in four of its last five appearances.
"It was a frustrating week for us," head coach Bill McDonald said to GamecocksOnline. "The team overall was playing well coming into the tournament, but we seemed to really struggle with simple execution and we didn't handle adversity well at all."
The team's lineup included junior Ryan Hall, super seniors Jamie Wilson and Caleb Proveaux, and sophomores Jack Wall and Nick Mayfield, just as it has in the previous three tournaments. Freshman Rafe Reynolds competed as an independent.
Wilson and Hall led the team on Sunday with top-10 ties. Wilson, a Mt. Pleasant native, was tied at the top of the leaderboard at 4-under (68) and Hall was in seventh at 2-under (70). As a team, the Gamecocks shot E (88) on Sunday, finishing in eighth and ten shots back from the lead, held by Kent State (-10).
Monday was a tough day for the Gamecocks, as the team dropped to 12th after shooting 8-over (296). Ryan Hall was tied individually at 12th, after shooting E.
Though the Gamecocks recovered on Tuesday, it wasn't enough. The team shot 3-under (285) and finished 9th at 5-over (869). Reynolds finished T.78, at 7-over (227).
No. 18 NC State won the tournament with an 18-under (846) finish.
Hall tied for 8th at 4-under (212), with a bogey-free final round 70 (-2). The Knoxville, Tennessee native is currently on the Haskins Watch List and ranked No.10 in GolfStat Player Rankings. He has had 11 top-20 finishes in his career at South Carolina.
"Ryan had another nice finish and now we need to turn the page quickly and get ready for Augusta this weekend," McDonald said.
The Gamecocks Men's Golf Team will be in Augusta, G.A., this weekend for the Haskins Award Invitational at Forest Hills Golf Club.