Lion’s senior Rhys West, from Johannesburg, South Africa, scored a 212 at Carter Plantation on Monday and Tuesday to propelling the Lions to their first win of the spring season.
It was, however, the Scottish duo of freshmen Eamon Bradley and Lawrence Allan that stole the show at the par-72 course. Bradley led all golfers with a final score of 211, while Allan posted a 214 competing as an individual in the tournament, which was good enough to take home the eighth-place spot.
“Lawrence has been playing very well, but he hasn’t been putting very well,” head coach Tim Baldwin said of Allan’s performance for the season. “I knew it was just a matter of time before he was going to break through, and this was the week. But I knew it was just a matter of time. He’s a good player, and he’s going to be an asset to us as we make our way to the conference championship.”
While both Bradley and Allan, along with sophomore Grady Brame (219) all finished with scores below 220, such has not been the case for the young Lions team for the majority of the season.
“We’re a better team than we were ranked,” Baldwin said. “We’re still a bit inconsistent, with Eamon picking up his first win and Lawrence coming on and Rhys finishing second this week. And Nicholas Inderthal may have been in the top 10, and if not 10 he was 11. So that’s three freshmen in the top 10 or 11, so things are looking good for us.”
West, who is the only senior on the team, thinks this win may turn the tides for the young club.
“We’ve actually struggled to get off to a good start and winning our home event is a step in the right direction,” said West. “Hopefully next week we can perform the same way and pull off another win.”
According to Bradley, despite being Southeastern’s home event, where the team has free reign to set up the course as they please, conditions were not in their favor for the majority of the two-day event.
“We as a team set up the golf course so that birdies were possible,” said Bradley. “But I think the conditions were difficult. It was windy, and the greens were hard. You try to shoot as low as you can, but I was pretty pleased with how I played.”  
As a result, the Lions played the course well, knocking in six eagles and 55 birdies. Brame, Bradley and sophomore Baptist Courtachon all averaged better than 10 pars per round.
In the end, Bradley was all smiles as he was announced as the tournament’s best golfer.
“It feels great,” Bradley said. “I started off great in the first round and sort of carried it on. I managed to finish off the deal. I’m very happy to get my first win as a college golfer, and I hope it’s the first of many.”