Mother nature had it in for the Eastern men’s golf team.

The Panthers opened up the Tri-State Classic hosted by Tennessee-Martin on a roll in the first round of play.

A trio of players were under par from Eastern early in the day, including senior Kyle Maxwell and the former Charleston High School teammates of junior Ben Wochner and sophomore Dustin Sloat.

However, it was after five or six holes when heavy rains moved into the Tennessee area causing a cancellation of play and an interesting format for tomorrow’s competition.

The meet at Pickwick Landing State Golf Course in Pickwick, Tenn. will now be an 18-hole event with only Tuesday’s round counting.

“It will be a shootout,” Eastern head coach Mike Moncel said. “It’s disappointing because our guys were doing so well but it’s a good sign.”

Moncel is confident that his squad can be very competitive in another all-southern school field and facing a vulnerable golf course.

“The course isn’t very difficult and it’s not a super strong field,” Moncel said. “I can see us winning that kind of tournament if everybody is playing well.”

Eastern is coming off a seventh place finish in a 12-team meet at Charleston Southern Invitational where Moncel came away with a concern about the Panthers around the greens.

“Our short game killed us down in South Carolina,” Moncel said. “We were just not used to fast greens and it’s just not the same playing on those types of conditions.”

In fact, Moncel believes Eastern’s highest finisher Matt Kockler should’ve carded a better score but struggled on the greens with the blade.

“Matt played a lot better than he scored,” Moncel said. “He had 11 three-putts in three rounds and if he could’ve cut those in half he would’ve been in contention for individual medalist.”

Eastern will tee it up in Tennessee Tuesday morning with hopes of the same start that it had in Monday.

“They are hopefully use to that success as motivation for this short tournament,” Moncel said.