On the road in Texas with Kent State's Men's Golf Team

Associate head coach Rob Wakeling reviews
strategy to attack the Traditions Club during
Friday night's team meeting

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – I’m on my first road trip of the season with the Kent State men’s golf team here at Texas A&M where the Golden Flashes hope to improve on last year’s second-place finish at the Aggie Invitational.

Associate head coach Rob Wakeling just met with the team here at the Hilton College Station Hotel to go over what each player learned about the beautiful Traditions Club during today’s practice round.

Which par-5’s do you plan to attack? If you are going to lay up, what distance? On which holes do you risk driver and when do you just pull out an iron? What greens have some tricky slopes? It’s more of a give and take between coach and players than you get in the team meetings leading up to a basketball or football game. Of course, in basketball and football there’s also no need to go over local rules. Millett Hall in Oxford might be a somewhat unusual, dinner-theater-style setting, but you don’t need to worry about hardwood under repair and how to put the ball back into play. 

Wakeling & Pendrith watch
Fry, Conners and Whalen hit
some balls late on Friday

This meeting wasn’t as long or involved as they usually are because, as senior Corey Conners put it, “there isn’t a whole lot to go over. At this course, it’s all pretty much right in front of you.”

Jack Nicklaus didn’t create a tricked-up track here in Aggieland. Traditions is straight forward, and yet extremely difficult. All of the players said the course is playing fast. Greens and fairways are both very firm. According to Conners, a good team number to shoot for tomorrow would be right around even par. Get it to 2-under and that will probably lead the tournament heading into Sunday’s final round.

An 8:30 a.m. departure
from Kent State on Thursday

Conners, Taylor Pendrith, Kyle Kmiecik, Kody Fry, Sebastian Bendsen and Josh Whalen also practiced briefly on Thursday afternoon at the beautiful Texas A&M golf facility that is only about a driver and a 3-wood from the Traditions clubhouse. We drove two hours straight to the practice facility after landing at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston just after 2 p.m.

Waiting for rental cars at
airport in Houston

The Bush name is very big here, by the way. College Station happens to house the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum. It’s an impressive building that I had hoped to visit today, although I never found the time.

The team arrives at Texas A&M
practice facility on Thursday

I met Bush 41 in 1994 when he was honored as the Ambassador of Golf prior to the World Series of Golf at Firestone Country Club. I was in my first year as a sportswriter at the Record-Courier at the time, and I had the chance to interview the former president along with three or four other local writers after he played in the Wednesday pro-am on Firestone’s North Course. He couldn’t have been more gracious. That was a thrill. It was also the first of three Presidents of the United States I was fortunate to meet during nearly 20 years as a sportswriter before coming to work at Kent State.

The Flashes prep for
Thursday's practice 

The time to go to the presidential library would have been early this afternoon following the practice round, but we’ve become pretty hooked on Texas barbecue in our first two days here, and that was our No. 1 priority. After both practices on Thursday and Friday we ended up at Rudy’s Country Store and Bar-B-Q for some of the best BBQ brisket, porkloin and ribs you’ll ever find … along with sweet tea and traditional banana pudding, of course.

We’ll be on the course at 8:40 a.m. tomorrow for the first tee time. Rain should hit around the turn of tomorrow afternoon’s second round. Hopefully we’ll get in a final round on Sunday when thunderstorms are supposed to roll in.

The Flashes finished second at last year's Aggie Invitational, shooting even par while Alabama lapped an outstanding field with an impressive 18-under-par total. The Crimson Tide is not back this year to defend, but there are still eight top-50 teams in this week's 12-team field, including No. 2 Oklahoma State and No. 3 California. Kent State enters the tournament at No. 30 in the Golfstat rankings. For the tournament preview at KentStateSports.com, click here.

Here's a link to the tee times for rounds 1 and 2 tomorrow at the Aggie Invitational.

You can follow the Aggie Invitational with live scoring provided by Golfstat.com by clicking here.

Dinner on Thursday night at Rudy's Bar-B-Q . We returned on Friday night,
and I'm guessing we'll be back on Saturday after round one at of the Aggie Invitational