Ending the three-day Atlanta Classic golf tournament in 5th place out of 25 teams, the Florida A&M University golf team is looking forward to using this tournament as a steppingstone on to the next one.
“This year was the biggest tournament,” said Gallop Franklin, 21, a fourth-year pharmacy student from Tallahassee. “We wish we could win, but it was our first tournament of the season.”
Franklin said even though the team was ranked in the top five, they are not happy.
“We always use the first tournament to gauge our team in playing together so we can know our strengths and weakness,” Franklin said. “Hopefully, we can win the next tournament.”
Marvin Green, head golf coach, said he was pleased with what his team did in Atlanta.
“I was very impressed with our freshman, Shepherd Archie and one of our returning sophomore Wesley Yates,” Green said.
For James Petty, 22, a senior business administration from Grant Balint, Mich., he felt that he did not meet his standards during the games.
“It showed me what I needed to improve on,” Petty said. “It was a good tournament, I got to see what needed to work on. I got to step up my game”
The team has a total of five players and Carlin Bryant is also one of the members who participated in the tournament.
Petty said going into the tournament he was excited to play after a summer of interning.
“I didn’t play much golf over the summer so I was looking forward to playing in competition,” Perry said.
Their next tournament will be this weekend in Orlando at the Mission IN Invitational hosted by Saint John University.
Green said he wants the team to hang with the teams in Orlando and show them what a historically black college can do.
Green also said the team has some things that they need to work on going into the tournament.
“We just got to hit more fairways and greens,” Green said.