The Kent State men’s golf team were in the running for the lead at the end of round one.

It all unraveled with a 300 team second round, the worst for the round.

The Flashes could never recover finishing 11th out of 13 teams at the General Hackler Championship.

Coach Herb Page didn’t hold back his disappointment on the team’s performance.

“We played poorly,” Page said. “We played bad. No excuses. We didn’t hit any good shots, and we didn’t sink any putts. We got our butts beat bad.”

Page went on to say the team mood was pretty bad.

“Nobody played good,” Page said. “There wasn’t much good that came out of this. Short games of putts and chips were atrocious. The mood was very quiet, maybe a bit angry. I was. I was embarrassed. We have nothing but improvements ahead.”

Page explained the poor performance was due to the team beating themselves, and he took the blame.

“I didn’t do a good job coaching,” Page said.  “If you look at the leaderboard and only beat two teams, you didn’t do well and if you don’t do well, you get beat really bad.”

Page said they were due for a bad performance.

“It’s golf,” Page said. “It gets you. We started playing bad and it snowballed. We beat ourselves. It was a terrible week. We need to get their confidence back.”

Associate coach Jon Mills echoed Page’s statement.

“Although we got off to a good start, towards the end of the round, the whole team started to struggle,” Mills said. “No one really got it going after about the 16th hole. Once everyone started to struggle, it was hard to bounce back.”

Mills explained they needed to have the right mindset, which didn’t happen.

“When you start having issues, the first thing you look towards is the swing,” Mills explained. “You start to think ‘what can I do to fix my swing,’ which is not the correct way to think. It’s about simple execution. All of us started to struggle at the same time, and in college golf, you can’t have that happen.”

Page explained although they got knocked down, what matters is how they get back up.

“It was an embarrassing week for Kent State golf,” Page said. “The true test is resilience. It’s how you handle it. It doesn’t matter how you get knocked down, what matters is how you get back up. It’s a lesson in humility. You recognize your weakness and you work on it. You can’t dwell on the bad.”

The Flashes have a short break and will then look to rebound at the Hootie at Bulls Bay in Awendaw, South Carolina March 24-26.

Zachary McKnight is a sports reporter. Contact him at [email protected].