The Golden Eagles post the second worst team score of the day, but Aiden Lafferty is now tied for the individual lead.Aiden
Day 2 of a three day golf tournament is, by definition, Moving Day in the tournament. Whatever you did on Day 1 is only a base for you to start from, and you want to put yourself in a good position heading into the final round the next day.
What you don’t want to do is what Marquette men’s golf did on Day 2 of the 2024 Big East Championship.
At 14 strokes over par as a team, Marquette posted the second worst team score of the day, trailing only the +15 that was posted by St. John’s. As a result, the Golden Eagles tumbled out of their spot in first place after 18 holes to +17 for the tournament and nine strokes behind first place Seton Hall at +8. If Marquette was still in second place after their slip down the leaderboard, this wouldn’t be much of a problem. However, Butler and Villanova are now in second and third place respectively at +10 and +14. It’s a team scoring event and a lot can obviously happen in one round, but if MU wants to repeat as Big East champions, they’re going to have to outduel the three teams in front of them on Monday, and also maybe fifth place Creighton. The Bluejays are at +18, just one stroke behind Marquette.
MU’s problem wasn’t so much the +6 from Max Lyons or the +7 from Will Hemauer on Sunday, especially with Hemauer as the high man and thus getting tossed out of the scoring. The problem was the Golden Eagles didn’t get another -4 day from Josh Robinson like they did on Friday. Robinson went +4 on Sunday, including four straight bogeys coming down the back nine, including a double on #15. He did close out his round with a birdie on 18 to get back to even overall on the individual leaderboard, where he is now tied for sixth place after leading at the end of Day 1.
Sunday wasn’t all bad news for Marquette. Aidan Lafferty shot an even par in Round 2, and matched with his -2 on Friday, he’s now tied for the individual lead with Peicheng Chen from St. John’s. They hold a one stroke lead over a trio of guys, one each from DePaul, Butler, and Seton Hall heading into the final round of the tournament.
Marquette will get started bright and early on Monday, pairing with Creighton for two man groups starting at 7:30am Central time. They will go off the first tee, with Villanova, Butler, and Seton Hall set to start at 8:15am. The bottom half of the leaderboard will start a little bit behind Marquette and Creighton, and they’ll be opening their rounds with the 10th hole and finishing up with the front nine. This could lead to some interesting moments if DePaul’s Artemiy Yalovenko takes a run at the individual title, as DePaul is currently tied with Connecticut for last place.
You can keep track of what’s happening via the Golfstat live scoring, but you can also head over to GKLive.tv and watch! The Big East says that every hole is covered and there’s live commentary on the 18th green. Streaming is free, so check it out if you have a chance. Be sure to check in with Marquette Golf on Twitter for updates as well.