May 3, 2011
HERSHEY, PA -- John Cole may be in his first competitive season of collegiate golf, but he's been around the game long enough to know one thing:
The pin placements for the final round are going to be tough.
But Cole has played the game long enough to know something else, too:
He's playing so well right now that he's ready to go right after those pins.
Cole backed up his first-round 71 with another one on Tuesday in the second round of the NCAA Division-II Atlantic/East Regional Golf Tournament to move to 2-under-par for the tournament -- just two shots back of the lead.
Cole, a freshman from Fayetteville, is vying for one of two individual berths into the NCAA National Championship at The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at The Shoals in Florence, AL.
Another round of 71 -- Cole's round was the third-best of the 108 players in the field on Tuesday -- might just be enough to do it. Cole believes otherwise, though, and feels like he has the game right now to go low enough to not only earn entry into the title tournament, but to win the regional outright.
"It'll be the final round, so I know the pins will be tougher," says Cole, who has won three times and finished in the top 5 six times this season for the Fayetteville State Broncos. "But I think I'll need to get into the 60s to have a chance to win or move on to the next step. And I feel confident enough in my game to go ahead and fire at those pins."
Gannon's Drew Deimel (71-69-140), another individual competing for a spot in mid-May's national tournament, is tied with American International College's Kent Graham (70-70-140) and St. Thomas Aquinas' Chris Fitzpatrick (68-72-140) atop the regional leaderboard at 4 under.
Clarion's Jared Schmader, who shot a 5-under 67 on Monday to lead after the first round, came back with a 74 to fall into fourth at 3 under.
Cole, who is alone in fifth, shook off a double bogey to start his round on Monday, and came out and bogeyed his first hole on Tuesday to drop back to even par for the tournament early on Tuesday. But he birdied three of the final six holes of the front nine to go out in 34 and move to 3 under and as high as a tie for fourth.
The Broncos' top player slipped a tad with bogeys on 16 and 17, but rallied with a birdie on the 501-yard par-5 18th to cap his 1-under 71 on the 6,837-yard Hershey Golf Links.
And after teeing off at 8:40 a.m., Cole had plenty of time to watch the afternoon groups struggle with windy conditions that materialized ahead of an approaching storm.
"I definitely think going off in the morning was an advantage," Cole says.
Cole will again start early for the third round Wednesday, scheduled to go off at 7:40 a.m. His best-case scenario may be to go out and post a number for the afternoon groups to try to chase down.
"I really think I've got a good shot at it," he says. "I'm comfortable with my game. I just need to make a couple more putts."
Cole's been around long enough to know.
