Texas rebounds to make move up leaderboard

Victoria Sun

Friday, May 31, 2002 | 9:31 a.m.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- There is the Texas Two-Step and at the NCAA Men's Golf Championships Thursday afternoon, there was the Texas Turnaround.

Despite a one-hour rain delay, the University of Texas rebounded from an opening round 7-over-par 291 to shoot 9-under par 275, vaulting from a tie for 21st into a tie for fourth place.

Senior John Klauk, a Palmer Cup Team member, and sophomore Rusty Kennedy each carded 4-under-par 67s to lead the Longhorns. It was Kennedy's career-best round.

"To be quite honest, yesterday I didn't think we played that poorly," Texas coach John Field said. "Especially coming in, I was proud of the way they finished so I wasn't upset or uptight and I don't think they were.

"Things just didn't really go our way. But out here, with the conditions of the course, I think obviously it's a little bit more scoeable right now, by comparison to the way it is sometimes, because it's wet. But that doesn't detract from the fact that the rough is getting longer and longer and there are places that it is eight inches deep."

Fields, the Big 12 coach of the year, said the Longhorns knew they had to play better or risk being cut from the final two days of the tournament in the event of a protracted rain delay.

If the teams did not finish their second rounds because of the rain, the tournament committee most likely would have cut the field in half.

Klauk, who finished at 2-over the first day, had birdies on Nos. 4, 6, 8, 10 and 16 and bogeyed Nos. 11 and 18.

"I knew it would come around eventually," Klauk said. "It did today.

"I stepped out on the first tee, piped a drive, hit it really close and made a birdie. I just hit my driver really well all day.

"We talked about how well we had been playing and that there was not much to worry about because everybody has a bad round. It just seemed like everybody on the team just had a bad day the same day which was unfortunate, but then everybody came out and put together a good round."