Harsh winds, below 40-degree weather and rain are not exactly ideal conditions for golf.

Struggling through cold and rainy weather all day, the Georgia Southern University men’s golf team got off to a rough start Monday morning at the Samford Intercollegiate Tournament in Birmingham, Ala.

“The conditions were really bad,” Larry Mays, head coach, said.  “It was cold and windy.  The temperature really never got over 35 to 36 degrees all day, hovered around 32, 33 most of the day, with 20 to 25 mph winds.  We didn’t handle the conditions as well as some of the other teams did, we made some sloppy mistakes. We definitely had a bad day one.”

Leading the Eagles in round one was junior Charlie Martin who tied for 18th.  Following Martin was junior Matthew Mierzejewski tying for 26th and junior Scott Wolfes, along with senior Will Evans, tied for 49th.  Sophomore Caleb Morris rounded out the team, which placed 11th out of 16 overall after day one.

“You’re going to hit some bad shots in bad weather, but it’s how you react to those bad shots and what you do on the next shot that’s going to be important and I think they did a better job of doing that day two than day one,” Mays said.

Day two provided less wind and somewhat warmer weather, which was a platform for the Eagles to rally back and take sixth place in the tournament.  Martin finished the meet in front of the team and managed to jump 13 spots, landing in a tied fifth position. Wolfes also rallied up into a tie for 19th with Mierzejewski finishing tied for 32nd.  Evans was close behind him tying for 35th and Morris coming up into 59th.

“I was really happy with the way the guys came out the next day and competed really hard and got off to a great start, which really turned it around,” Mays said. “Your pride kicks in at some point and we really challenged them to compete harder and to focus and block out the stuff we have no control over, which is Mother Nature. If you’re going to be out there you might as well do the best you can and start trying to hit more shots toward the middle of the green.  More than anything it was just determination and focus and grit.”

The Eagles will be hosting the Schenkel Invitational at Forest Heights Country Club starting March 14, which will include three top 10 teams in the NCAA and five top 50 players in the country.

“You can look at [this past tournament] either from the negative point where we didn’t play like we wanted to or you can take the positive from the tournament where we really bounced back and played a really good second day and showed some resolve, some grit, and ability to bounce back from a bad day,” Mays said.  “I think we’re going to take it from the positive point of view and now we just got to get out and work hard over the next few days before we host our home event.”