In an interview with Washington State men’s golf Head Coach Garrett Clegg, the first words out of his mouth when describing what the Cougars were up against at the Tavistock Collegiate Invitational was how elite a 15-team field his players were up against.

Turns out he was not kidding.

At the end of round one in a 54-hole tournament WSU flashed its youth, but not in a good way, finishing the day tied for 14th with New Mexico at 19-over par (307). The Cougars are 28 shots off Day 1 leader and fellow Pac-12 conference member California-Berkley (-9, 279) and have some serious ground to make up on the leaderboard over the next two days.

Clegg believes his varsity five is good enough to earn a postseason bid to the NCAA Regionals this spring, on the one premise that the collective team youth develops and gels quickly. Easier said than done, however, as became evident in yesterday’s showing.

Described as a course that rivals a PGA Tour site in difficulty, the Isleworth Golf and Country Club – and a stacked field featuring No. 1 ranked Illinois and quarterfinalist in last year’s NCAA Championships Vanderbilt among other perennial powers – made the Cougars to look like kittens.

Sophomore Derek Bayley posted the lowest score for WSU as expected, shooting an even-par (72) first round. The Pacific Northwest’s own is sitting in a tie for 17th entering the second round. Cal’s Collin Morikawa is atop the individual leaderboard at 5-under (67).

Sophomore Zach Anderson, WSU’s finesse driver and chipper, shot a respectable score of 5-over relative to the difficulty of the golf course to position himself in a tie for 57th. Anderson has become one of Clegg’s more consistent shooters after a strong showing at the Itani Quality Homes Collegiate two weeks ago.

Shooting 7-over (79) and tying for 68th out of 75 golfers, freshmen Aaron Whalen and AJ Armstrong and junior Nick Mandell showed that while they each have emerging levels of potential at the collegiate level of competition, they all still have much to learn in a short amount of time if WSU is to contend for a postseason berth this spring.

Round two of the invitational will commence today as the Cougars hope to pull themselves out of the cellar in the team leaderboard. Follow the action at golfresults.com.

Reporting by Braden Johnson