Northwestern, No. 33 in the latest Golfstat rankings, dodged the weather at Karsten Creek Golf Club in
the opening round of qualifying for match play in the NCAA Championship Friday
and completed an 8-under-par 280 to grab a three-shot lead.
The Wildcats are being chased by six other teams which are
under par for their incomplete rounds as three-and-a-half hours of weather
delays finally halted the afternoon wave as daylight disappeared in Stillwater,
Okla.
But not before Northwestern, led by Ryan Lumsden, a junior
from England who got a share of the individual lead with a 5-under 67 over the
7,460-yard, par-72 Karsten Creek layout, got in the house with a solid round.
Defending national champion Oklahoma, ranked third, is still
on the course in second place at 5-under. No. 13 Texas Tech sits in third place
at 4-under with some work still to do.
No. 1 Oklahoma State, playing on its home course, is fourth
at 3-under. A fourth Big 12 entry, No. 15 Texas, is a shot behind the Cowboys
in fifth at 2-under. Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas are all coming off impressive
regional team titles.
No. 4 Vanderbilt and No. 14 Clemson are the only other teams
under par and are tied for sixth at 1-under. The field of 30 teams will be cut
to 15 following Sunday’s third round and the top eight teams after Monday’s
fourth round will qualify for match play, which gets under way Tuesday.
Northwestern had two other players better par behind
Lumsden’s sizzling 67 as Everton Hawkins, a sophomore from Irvine, Calif.,
carded a 2-under 70 that has him a group tied for 13th, and Sam
Triplett, a senior from Scottsdale, Ariz., posted a 1-under 71 and is in the
group tied for 24th.
Dylan Wu, a senior from Medford, Ore., matched par with a 72
and is in the group tied for 37th. And the Wildcats were able to toss
a solid 1-over 73 turned in by Pete Griffith, a junior from Westlake Village,
Calif. Griffith is in the group tied for 60th.
There were some sneaky tiebreakers in the women’s
championship, including the one that broke the tie for the top seed in match play,
based on lowest total of the throwout rounds, so that round by Griffith might prove
useful at some point.
Three other players are tied with Lumsden for the individual
lead at 5-under, but only one other – UNLV’s Shintaro Ban, a senior from San
Jose, Calif. and No. 18 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) -- is in the
clubhouse, like Lumsden is, with a completed round of 67.
Texas Tech’s Ivan Ramirez, a junior from Colombia, and
Clemson’s Bryson Nimmer, a junior from Bluffton, S.C., are 5-under, but will
have to return to the course Saturday morning to complete their opening rounds.
Oregon’s Norman Xiong, a sophomore from Canyon Lake, Calif.
and No. 3 in the WAGR, is one of four players tied for fifth at 4-under. Xiong,
coming off the individual title in the Stockton Regional, completed a sparkling
4-under 68.
Two other players at 4-under completed their rounds, as
Xiong did, including Oklahoma’s Quade Cummins, a redshirt sophomore from
Weatherford, Okla., and Kent State’s Chase Johnson, a senior from Barberton,
Ohio.
Texas’ Scottie Scheffler, a senior from Dallas who was the
low amateur in last summer’s U.S. Open at Erin Hills, is also in the group tied
for fourth at 5-under, but he’ll be returning to the course Saturday morning to
complete his round. Like Xiong, Scheffler was a member of the winning U.S.
Curtis Cup team last summer at Los Angeles Country Club.
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