North Carolina men’s golfer Patrick Barrett’s rounds at this weekend’s tournament didn’t count toward his team’s overall score — but he didn’t let that stop him from posting the second-best individual score of the tournament.
Because Barrett didn’t qualify for UNC’s starting five at the Tar Heel Intercollegiate, he said he felt pressure to play well and fix some problems from his less-than-stellar performance at the Carpet Capital Collegiate last weekend in Georgia.
“You have to look at where your bad shots were,” Barrett said. “Mine were with my swing.”
Barrett said that changes he made to his swing hurt him in qualification, but once the weekend came, the same changes vaulted him near the top of the leaderboard.
“(Barrett) didn’t play well in qualifying this week, and got beat out for the fifth spot,” head coach Andrew Sapp said. “He came back with determination to play great, and he did.”
After three rounds at Finley Golf Course, Barrett finished 5-under par for the second-place finish.
Even though Barrett was only playing for himself, he said he wanted to prove that he deserved a spot in the starting five that ended up placing second overall.
“It’s different when you are counting because you have the rest of the team to let down,” Barrett said. “But personally, I felt more pressure not being in the starting lineup because I needed to prove I was capable of playing well.”
With three birdies and no bogeys on the front nine of his first round on Saturday, Barrett tried to use the strong start as a catalyst for the rest of the weekend.
