Senior Pranav Nandakumar led the Knox College men's golf team to a tie for seventh place in the 11-team field after the first round of play at the Fighting Scot Invite, carding a 3-over 74 on Saturday afternoon. He will enter the second and final round tomorrow four strokes off the pace.

Opening his round with a shotgun start on the 17th hole at the par-71, 6,362-yard Gibson Woods Golf Course, Nandakumar got off to a bit of an ignominious start with bogeys on his first two holes. And even after a birdie on one, he bogeyed four more holes before righting his ship with consecutive birdies on 10 and 11. With five pars to close out his round, he finished the day tied for 10th in the 63-player field.

Each of first-year Jaxson Forman (9-over 80), junior Nathaniel Zug (10-over 81) and senior Gabriel Newman (11-over 82) had one birdie in their respective rounds and accounted for the other scores that contributed to the Prairie Fire's 33-over 317.

Augustana College and host Monmouth ended the day tied for first at 12-over par, while Augustana's B team is two strokes back in third. Yet three Waldorf College golfers sit atop the individual leaderboard at 1-under each.

• The seventh, 17th and 18th holes all proved to be extremely challenging for the Knox contingency as none of its six players was able to shoot par on any of them; those three holes were among the five most difficult for the field.

The invitational will conclude with the second and final round tomorrow, teeing off at 9 a.m.