North Carolina State University Athletics
MEN'S GOLF WRAPUP: A Conversation with Richard Sykes
5/18/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
May 18, 2005
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH - For the first time since 1997, the NC State men's golf team did not qualify for the NCAA East Regional. It was a disappointing season for veteran golf coach Richard Sykes for a couple of reasons. First, he didn't believe his team played up to its potential until late in the year. And second, when the team did turn things around by finishing third in the ACC Championship, it was not enough to earn a bid into the post-season.
Sykes talked this week about his 34th season as the Wolfpack men's golf coach.
PDF of 2004-05 NC State Men's Golf Final Stats
GOPACK: When you finish better than you start, that's a good thing. What were your overall impressions of the season?
SYKES: Well, we probably finished about where I thought we would start. We had three kids returning who all finished in the top 10 of the conference championship last year. I really thought we would come out with some of the new guys or a couple of the older guys who could fill in those other two spots and really have a pretty solid team. For some reason, it never really happened in the fall, no one really played they way they were capable of playing and we kept putting too much pressure on each other. As that happened, no one really was able to step up and be an "eraser," someone who could step up and erase a bad score somewhere. We would never make that happen. The longer we went without that, the more pressure we felt. The harder we tried, the worse we got.
In the spring time, Taylor Crosby joined us and we put another strong player in the lineup. But we still did that same thing. We played one lineup in Puerto Rico. We started out in Tallahassee and went with the same line up. Then before the second hole of the second round, Luke came down with an appendicitis. That knocked that tournament out pretty good. That puts the pressure on the other four guys. Next tournament he couldn't play. We go to the next tournament and we played another lineup (Stephen Lewton, Jerry Richardson, Taylor Crosby, Banks Wood and Garry Hill) and we start doing pretty well.
I have to take the blame for not playing that lineup. I think our team was good enough not only to play in the regionals, but also good enough to advance through the regionals. But our season didn't justify us getting to the regional. I kind of thought it might, but when you have people that look at this stuff and the compare all the schedules and all the results and they didn't think so. I have to live with that. We had the clubs in our hands all year. We could have made that happen and taken that decision away from them, but we didn't do it.
GOPACK: There were a lot of teams in the ACC that did make into the regionals, maybe a couple that didn't have a year as good as you. Why is that?
COACH SYKES: What happens is, people don't understand that golf is done by geographical representation. It's not done by taking the automatic qualifiers and then the 60 next best teams. You have a certain number of teams per region that get invited. In our region that is eight teams. I see where some people compare us to Boston College and Maryland, but they are not in our region. We never were in competition with them for a regional berth. They are in out of our district. I think we may go to a different system in the next couple of years where they take the automatic qualifiers and the next best teams. If they did that, we probably would have made it this year. But that is the way it is done and we knew that when we teed it up at the beginning of the season.
GOPACK: What do your guys need to do over the summer? I see where Andrew Byrd has already made it to the next round of qualifying for the U.S. Open in Pinehurst. What were your instructions to everyone?
COACH SYKES: Andrew Byrd at the end of the year was playing very well. It took him all year to get his game straight from last summer, when he didn't play as much as he needed to. He's obviously going to be a very good contributor for us next year. The lineup that we used at the end of the year all return: Stephen Lewton, Jerry Richardson, Taylor Crosby, Banks Wood and Garry Hill. They all return. We have some guys on the team that steadily got better all year and they will be back to try to earn a spot. Byrd would be one of them. Then we have three really good prospects that we signed. I was looking for a good year this year, but it didn't happen. I have a lot of reasons to believe we will be much better next year. To miss the regional for the first time ever was kind of a shake, but we ended the season as a good golf team. We just had to carry the weight of what we did early in the year.
GOPACK: What are the major issues facing the men's golf programs in the off-season?
COACH SYKES: Obviously, we would like to get our golf course started. That would be kind of a shot in the arm for all of us. But that has to take some time. Everybody on our team knows what their weaknesses were. It is much more fun to practice your strengths, but you need to work on your weaknesses as well. All the guys on our team don't have a really good feeling about not making the regional either. I think we will find over the summer that our guys will go out and work hard to get better.
GOPACK: So what can you do to help the fundraising for the golf course?
COACH SYKES: You know, I don't know how to do fundraising. I wish I did. I don't envy the people do that job, because it is hard to ask people for money. Obviously, I would like for somebody to step up to the plate and do the naming rights. For the people who have that kind of money, it is a tremendous opportunity to have something named after them because it will be there forever. But I checked my wallet this morning and I didn't have a shot at naming it.
It's a $5 million gift, and when that happens, it is like a snowball running downhill. I believe to do all the projects - the golf course, the clubhouse and the training facility - is like $16.5 million. When we get the first $9 million, they can start building the golf course.
GOPACK: How much do you plan on being at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2? Tim Clark is already qualified and Carl Pettersson and Andrew Byrd have already advanced to the second stage of qualifying.
COACH SYKES: I won't be there the whole time, because I have golf camp going on. But I expect that Carl will qualify, along with Tim. And Garth Mulroy will be trying to qualify too, and I think you heard what he did last week at The Big Stakes. He and his partner won $3 million by winning the whole thing. If he can do that about three more years, we might get this golf course done.
