Penn State tees off in the NCAA Regional Monday at Aldarra
Country Club in Sammamish, Wash. ranked 49th in the latest Golfstat rankings and seeded ninth of
the 14 teams in the regional field.
Those numbers will be rendered meaningless the minute the
first tee shot is struck Monday morning a little after 8 a.m. Pacific time. All
that matters after that are the numbers on the scorecard. The goal is simple:
Finish in the top five in the team standings and the season continues on to the
NCAA Championship, which tees off May 26 at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove,
Ill.
At the 6,855-yard, par-71 Aldarra layout, a Tom Fazio
design, the Nittany Lions will be part of a field that includes the No. 1 team
in the country, Southern California. But such are the vagaries of golf that the
Trojans could do no better than finish tied for third at the Pac-12
Championships, which were shortened from 72 holes to 54 holes by snow at
Boulder Country Club in Boulder, Colo. Yeah, snow. At the Pac-12 Championship.
Penn State is coming off a solid tie for fourth at the Big
Ten Championship, which was dominated by Illinois. The Fighting Illini, ranked
eighth, are seeded second in the regional at the Brick Boilermaker Golf Complex’s
Kampen Course in West Lafayette, Ind.
The big question for Penn State, which will go unanswered in
this blog post, is the status of sophomore Ryan Dornes, a former Manheim
Township standout.
The Nittany Lions were really flying high in March when
Dornes and junior Cole Miller, a Northwestern Lehigh product, were two of the
three players who shared first place in the individual standings at the
Kingsmill Intercollegiate. They led Penn State to a near-miss runnerup finish
by a shot to Tennessee in the team standings.
But sometime between the Kingsmill and the Rutherford
Intercollegiate hosted by Penn State, Dornes suffered a fractured hand that was
said to sideline him for six to eight weeks. Even without Dornes, the Nittany
Lions rallied to share the team title at the Rutherford with Georgetown.
It doesn’t seem likely that Dornes would be able to recover
in time to tee it up Monday, but we’ll see. And Greg Nye’s team is pretty solid
without him.
Miller, who staged a rally to defeat Ryan’s big brother J.D.
Dornes for the Pennsylvania Amateur championship at Moselem Springs Golf Club
last summer, has really had a breakout spring for the Lions.
Before sharing the title at the Kingsmill with Dornes,
Miller fired rounds of 66, 67 and 68 at the Southward Golf Course in
Tallahassee, Fla. to capture the individual title at the Seminole
Intercollegiate with a 15-under-par 201 and lead the Nittany Lions to the team
title.
Sharing second that weekend were host Florida State and
Georgia Tech. The Lions will run into the Seminoles again in Sammamish as they
are seeded fourth and ranked 24th. Georgia Tech is seeded fourth in
the regional at the Stanford Golf Course in Stanford, Calif.
Charles Huntzinger, a sophomore from Duluth, Ga., might be
Penn State’s most talented player. A final round of 3-under 67 at Baltimore
Country Club’s Five Farms East Course enabled Huntzinger to finish tied for
fourth in the Big Ten Championship.
Miller continued his strong spring with a final-round 69 at
Five Farms to finish tied for sixth in the Big Ten Championship. Miller tuned
up for the NCAA Regional with a solid 3-over 73 at the Country Club of York in
a local qualifier for the U.S. Open last week. He didn’t advance to the
sectional qualifying, but it couldn’t have hurt to get in a round in a highly
competitive environment on a golf course that I’m fairly certain was set up for
championship conditions.
If Dornes isn’t healed in time, the rest of the starting
lineup will likely be the same five who teed it up for the Lions at Five Farms.
Sophomore JD Hughes was twice a top-10 finisher in the PIAA
Class AAA Championship while at Carlisle. He played at Kent State as a freshman
in 2013-14 and then disappeared before showing up on the Penn State roster this
season.
Hughes was in and out of the starting five when Dornes was
still healthy, so with Dornes out, he was the logical choice to fill the void.
His final round of 1-under 70 at Penn State’s Blue Course had a lot to do with
the Nittany Lions’ surge that caught Georgetown for a share of the team title.
He had three solid rounds at Five Farms to finish tied for 35th.
Ryan Davis, a freshman from Berkeley Heights, N.J., has had
a fine rookie season. He flashed with a 2-under 69 in the middle round of the
Rutherford and finished tied for sixth in the individual standings.
He had a stinker of a second round in the Big Ten
Championship with an 83, but bounced back nicely with a final round of 1-over
71. He displayed the kind of attitude you absolutely have to have in a team
setting.
Canadian Christian Elliott is the lone senior in a young
lineup. But he can play. His 4-under 68 in the opening round of the Seminole
had a lot to do with the Nittany Lions’ stunning 15-under 273 start on their
way to a victory that had to instill some belief in this team that it could
compete with anybody.
Monday is the first day of March Madness for college golf
fans. The power conferences are, just as in basketball, well represented.
Southern Cal is joined by fellow Pac-12 power Stanford,
featuring Maverick McNealy, the No. 1 player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking,
as a top seed. And the No. 4 Cardinal will be playing at home on the Stanford
Golf Course.
The Southeastern Conference boasts three top seeds, led by
No. 2 Vanderbilt, the SEC champion, playing at The Grove in College Grove,
Tenn. No. 5 Florida, which dropped a scintillating 3-2 match-play decision to
the Commodores in the SEC semifinals, is the top seed at Purdue’s Kampen
Course. And No. 6 LSU will be right at home as the top seed at the University
Club in Baton Rouge, La.
The other top seed belongs to the Big 12’s Oklahoma State,
ranked third. The Cowboys will renew their rivalry with Texas on the Longhorns’
home course, the University of Texas Golf Club in Austin, Texas. No. 16 Texas,
seeded third on its home course, edged Oklahoma State by a shot in brutal conditions
at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan. for the Big 12 team title.
But there are a bunch of champions from small conferences
teeing it up as well. And several teams from outside the top five seeds are
going to be packing their bags for Sugar Grove, Ill. a couple of weeks. You can
count on it.
Sometime in the next 12 to 24 hours Greg Nye and many of his
college coaching colleagues will deliver one simple message to their players:
Every. Shot. Counts.
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