Senior Davis DeKorte carded one of just six eagles in the 217-player field on Tuesday, day one of the 2018 NCAA Division III Men's Golf Championships Tournament in Greensboro, North Carolina. Lake Forest's five players completed their first round but play was suspended due to weather later in the day.
DeKorte and sophomore Jacob Krugman are among 19 players tied for 64th place overall at five strokes over par. Of the 63 players ahead of them, 25 have yet to complete their opening round. DeKorte started his day with a double-bogey on the 10th hole of the Grandover Resort West Course. He birdied the 330-yard, par-4 13th but fell to three-over with bogeys on 16 and 18. After birdies on the 565-yard, par-5 second and 355-yard, par-4 fourth and a bogey on five, DeKorte turned in the event's first eagle of the day on the 520-yard, par-5 sixth. Bogeys on each of his final three holes, however, dropped him to three-over on the 6780-yard, par-72 course.
Krugman recorded pars on 12 of 18 holes in his opening round. He started with a bogey on 10 but was back at par after matching DeKorte with a birdie on 13. A double-bogey on 14 and bogeys on one and two dropped him to +4 but a birdie on four was followed with five straight pars to finish the day with a score of 75.
Forester junior Elijah Collins and sophomore Ricky Schmidt were next on the team and rank tied-for165th in the field with matching scores of 80. Collins had 10 pars and eight bogeys in his round while Schmidt finished with 11 pars, including seven in a row at one point, before a double-bogey on nine, his final hole of the day, dropped him to +8.
Sophomore Austin Aksoy joined DeKorte and Krugman with a birdie on 13 but finished with a score of 95.
Entering the national tournament with a season scoring average of 310.8, the Foresters opened the with a 310. They are currently in 34th place out of 42 teams but are likely to climb a few spots in the standings once the 18 teams who teed off in the afternoon complete round one. Those squads will continue play Wednesday morning at 8:00 and round two is scheduled to begin with a shotgun start at approximately 11:00 a.m. Lake Forest will play on the East Course, which covers 7,150 yards and played more thn a stroke-and-a-half more difficult than the West on Tuesday.
