ROUND ONE RESULTS
PHOTO GALLERY

Junior DJ Dougherty fired a career-best 69 in the first round of the 2010 Big South Men's Golf Championship to finish tied for third after day one in Ninety-Six, S.C., on Monday. The Panthers have a combined team score of 297 and sit in third, 11 strokes behind day one leader Coastal Carolina.

“Obviously DJ played very well,” head coach JB White said. “All of them struggled a bit on the first few holes but we came back to shoot pretty good numbers. I don't feel too bad about the way we played. I thought we might shoot a little better. But I am pretty happy with the way we played and the score we shot.”

Dougherty, who finished fourth at last season's Big South Championship, birdied his first two holes of the day and finished with five birdies on the day. The score was the lowest by any HPU golfer since Andrew Mespelt shot 69 on March 18, 2008, at the Grub Mart-Young Oil Intercollegiate, and the lowest in the conference championship since Brian Hayes carded a 69 in 2004.

“I played very well today,” Dougherty said. “I had five birdies and just two bogeys. I got off to a hot start with birdies on the first two holes. I stroked the ball really well. I hit a lot of greens and was able to bury some key putts.”

Junior Nick Goins recovered from a double bogey on the second hole to finish in a tie for 12th with a first-round score of 75 and junior Evan LaRocque finished just one stroke back of Goins in a tie for 20th with an 18-hole score of 76. Freshman Chase Wilson shot even-par on the back nine to finish his first championship round in a tie for 24th with a score of 77. Sophomore Curtis Brotherton carded an opening-round 79 to finish tied for 30th and round out the HPU scorers.

CCU, the No. 1 seed in the competition, shot 286 in the first round to jump out to a five-stroke lead over Winthrop after 18 holes. Both the Chanticleers and Eagles featured two golfers who shot below par on the day. Radford and Charleston Southern finished in a tie for fourth with identical first round scores of 298, one behind HPU. Presbyterian finished in sixth with an opening round score of 300 while Liberty (304) and Gardner-Webb (314) finished in seventh and eighth respectively.

PC's Matt Sizemore shot 65 to finish atop the individual standings after day one. The 65 was the second lowest single-round score in Big South Men's Golf Championship history. Sizemore leads by two strokes over Coastal Carolina's Dan Obremski and by four over Dougherty and Kelvin Day of Charleston Southern.

The Panthers will return to the Patriot Golf Course in Ninety Six, S.C., for the second round of the 2010 Big South Men's Golf Championship on Tuesday. HPU will tee off in the final group of teams starting at 9:40 a.m.