Hickam leads Gulf Coast to second place

SCOTTSBORO, Ala. – Phillip Hickam took his share of the first-round NJCAA Division II Golf Tournament lead and ran off Wednesday. His 5-under 67 makes him 11-under at Goose Pond Colony's Lake Course.

That's three better than Bulldogs teammate Grant Motter, who matched Hickam's 67 to jump to second place. The duo powered Gulf Coast two spots up the team leaderboard. The Bulldogs are in second, seven behind South Mountain Community College, from Phoenix, Ariz.

Gulf Coast moved six ahead of Tyler (Texas) Junior college, which was in second after Tuesday. Darton (Ga.) State College, which was third, is another three back, now in fourth.

For Hickam, it's been a dream couple of days.

"I'm just hitting it real well," the freshman from Olive Branch said. "All my misses are good. Everything is in the right place. Everything's clicking.

"It's crazy. I've never done this before, bogey-free through 36 holes."

Hickam birdied Nos. 4, 7, 10 and 14 on Thursday before pulling a five-wood out on the 223-yard, par-3 16^th hole. He nearly knocked it in, making a three-footer for his last birdie.

"He's hitting everything right at the flag," Gulf Coast coach Tommy Snell said. "It could have been a lot better today. He burned more lips than hot soup. Five-under could have been 10-under, easily."

Conner Entriken was 2-under Wednesday and is plus-2 for the tournament. George Kawell was 1-over for the day and the same overall.

Danny De Los Santos is 7-over after a second-round 74.

Gulf Coast played the final hole 2-over as a team, and it could have been worse.  The Bulldogs had gotten to 15-under for the day as a team and gave a few shots back down the stretch.

Motter, the final Gulf Coast golfer on the course, stopped the bleeding despite hitting his tee shot left. He had to knock his approach under some trees up a hill.

Two bounces on the cart path later, he was pin high to the right of the green. He chipped it close and made a curling putt for par.

Hickam answered a question about if he was feeling confident as quickly and frankly as he could.

"Hell, yeah. We've got to keep grinding away," he said. "We've got 36 more holes left. We'll see what happens."

Team scoreboard