Sophomore Toby Ragland (Jacksonville, Fla.) matched his low round of the season with a three-under 69 on Sunday, leading the top-ranked University of Florida men’s golf team to a score of 294 (+6) on the first day of the Puerto Rico Classic. The Gators stand in a tie for 13th place in the 18-team field after the first round of competition.

“We didn’t play particularly well today at all, but sometimes golf works like that,” Florida head coach Buddy Alexander said. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us now if we want to be competitive in this tournament. We’ll try to figure some things out tonight and hopefully come back tomorrow with a different mindset.”

Ragland, who earned a top-20 finish at last year’s Puerto Rico Classic, birdied six holes on the day, including back-to-back birdie efforts on holes 16 and 17. He played the front nine in a two-under-par clip of 34 on Sunday, and brought his round home in 35 strokes to finish the day tied for seventh. His first-round 69 equals the season-low he posted in both the third round of the Preview Invitational and the first round of the Isleworth Invitational in the fall.

“One of the reasons I picked Toby to play in this tournament is that he’s a gamer,” Alexander said. “I’ve said it time and again, Toby usually seems to help us out when we have a bad round as a team. I was certainly pleased with the way he played today, and hopefully we’ll see the same tomorrow and Tuesday.”

Freshman Tim McKenney (Scottsdale, Ariz.) finished the day with a score of 73 (+1), rolling in four birdies along the way. Sophomore Billy Horschel (Grant, Fla.) is two strokes behind his rookie teammate after posting an opening-round 75. Horschel played par golf over his last 17 holes of the day to bounce back from a triple-bogey on No. 1. Freshman Tyson Alexander (Gainesville, Fla.) and junior Manuel Villegas (Medellin, Colombia) both rounded out the Gator lineup with a five-over score of 77.

Action will continue at the Puerto Rico Classic at 7 a.m. EST on Monday. Live scoring can be accessed via www.gatorzone.com.

Team Scores Through Round One

Individual Top-10 Through Round One

Florida Results Through Round One

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