JORDAN — Despite solid driving off of the tees, Albert Lea’s trio of golfers at the Class AA state tournament finished more than 10 strokes back from the leader at the end of Day 1 because of a rough time in the short game.

Lucas Peterson, 81, Brady Loch, 81, and Alex Syverson, 88, finished the first round of the two-day tournament at The Ridges at Sand Creek Tuesday with higher scores than when they played the same course last week for the section finals.

“I had a hard time on the greens today, and my short game wasn’t what it usually is,” said Peterson. “I was struggling with getting my speed down. Each hole was different, and I was inconsistent with the speed of my putts.”

“I felt like I watched a lot of good golf shots be hit and just not a lot of taking advantage of those good shots,” Albert Lea coach Riley Worth said.

Peterson, Loch and Syverson all drove the ball well off of the tees according to Worth, but it was in the short game — putting and chipping — where

they struggled.

“Every time you hit the ball counts as the same amount, whether it is 300 yards or three feet,” he said. “So you have to value those three-foot and 10-foot putts and those chips from just off the green. You have to be consistently good in those.”

Despite the struggles, Worth said that he saw some improvement over the course of the day.

“Lucas and Brady were both able to break 40 on the back (nine holes) so that’s always encouraging when you can see them overcome some early struggles and figure things out a bit,” Worth said. I did see our guys make some long putts, but overall our guys were struggling to make putts and struggling to get up and down. It seemed like we were stuck in neutral on the greens. We couldn’t get anything going.”

According to Worth, all three golfers stayed late on the course after their round had ended to practice their chipping and putting.

“I hit the ball well, got off the tee well. That wasn’t a problem,” Lucas said, adding that he felt confident that he could improve his score the second day of the tournament.

Complete results from the area are in the Scoreboard: June 10 post.