They’ve had a bull’s-eye on them pretty much from the start
of the 2017-’18 Division I men’s golf season.
The Oklahoma State Cowboys have sat atop the Golfstat rankings most of the season.
They were going to get the NCAA Championship on their home course. They led the
stroke-play qualifying at Karsten Creek Golf Club over the Memorial Day
weekend. They were the team to beat.
And while the commentators on The Golf Channel’s Golf Central
pregame show argued about the fairness of how the seeding worked itself out,
Oklahoma State just went out and took care of business. After all, arguing for
fairness in golf, let alone match-play golf, is kind of a laughable concept to
begin with.
Oklahoma State just went out and played, gutting out a 3-1-1
win over No. 2 Texas A&M, seeded eighth in the match-play bracket, in
Tuesday morning’s quarterfinals and a 3-2 decision over No. 9 Auburn, seeded
fifth, in Tuesday afternoon’s semifinals.
The Cowboys’ opponent in Wednesday’s Final Match will be No.
6 Alabama, the team that fell to Auburn in an epic Southeastern Conference
title match. The Crimson Tide, seeded sixth, battled to a 3-2 victory over No.
13 Texas Tech, seeded third, in the quarterfinals Tuesday morning and then
rolled to a 5-0 decision over No. 28 Duke, seeded second, in Tuesday
afternoon’s semifinals.
Did Alabama have an easier road to the final? Maybe. But
Texas Tech and Duke had both displayed an affinity for the 7,460-yard, par-72
Karsten Creek layout while outperforming their rankings in stroke play. They
were playing great golf when it matters the most and there’s something to be
said for that.
And Duke had to get a bit of an emotional boost when senior
Jake Shuman of Needham, Mass. stared down the No. 1 player in the World Amateur
Golf Ranking (WAGR), Texas’ Doug Ghim, a senior from Arlington Heights, Ill.,
1-up, to lift the Blue Devils to a 3-2 quarterfinal victory over the No. 15
Longhorns, seeded seventh, in one of the highlights of Tuesday's morning quarterfinals.
The day began for Oklahoma State with its stud, Viktor
Hovland, a sophomore from Norway and No. 7 in the WAGR, taking on the top
Aggie, Chandler Phillips, a junior from Huntsville, Ala. and No. 9 in the WAGR.
Hovland had to go 19 holes to pull out a crucial point for
the Cowboys. The two freshmen, seemingly impervious to the pressure of the
moment, did the rest.
Matthew Wolff of Agoura Hills, Calif. rolled to a 4 and 3
decision over Dan Erickson, a sophomore from Whittier, Calif. Austin Eckroat of
Edmond, Okla. birdied the last to finish off a 1-up victory over Brandon Smith,
a sophomore from Frisco, Texas.
Eckroat’s win rendered moot the other two matches with
Kristoffer Ventura, Oklahoma’s veteran senior from Norway, locked in an
extra-hole battle with A&M’s Walker Lee, a freshman from Houston, and Zach
Bauchou, a junior from Forest, Va. and No. 23 in the WAGR, all square with the
Aggies’ Andrew Paysse, a senior from Temple, Texas on the 18th tee.
It was a tough match, exactly what Oklahoma State expected.
I didn’t get the Oklahoma State matchup with defending
national champion Oklahoma I – and I think a pretty decent amount of the
populace of the Sooner State that follows college golf – was hankering for in
the semifinals.
The Sooners’ bid for a second straight national championship
was halted by the SEC champion Tigers. The SEC added match play to its
conference championship to give its teams a taste of what might lie ahead at
the NCAA Championship last year. The strategy seemed to pay dividends this
year.
Auburn had the slightest of edges in pulling out a 3-2
victory. In the end, Auburn’s freshman phenom, Brandon Mancheno of
Jacksonville, Fla., pulled out a 3 and 1 victory over an Oklahoma veteran,
Grant Hirschman, a senior from Collierville, Tenn., to clinch a spot in the
semis for the Tigers.
Mancheno lost in a playoff to Augusta’s Broc Everett for the
individual title Monday. He went 3-0 in match play in the SEC Championship. It
has been a very good spring for Mancheno.
Trace Crowe, a junior from Bluffton, S.C., pulled out a 1-up
decision over Quade Cummins, a redshirt sophomore from Weatherford, Okla., for a
critical point for the Tigers. And Ben Schlottman, a senior from Advance, N.C.,
cruised to a 5 and 4 victory over Garett Reband, a sophomore from Fort Worth,
Texas.
The Mancheno magic finally wore off the semifinals as
Eckroat, who’s having a pretty good rookie campaign of his own, clinched a
berth in the Final Match for the Cowboys with a 3 and 2 victory over the Auburn
freshman.
The other two points in the semifinals for Oklahoma State
came from its top-25-in-the-WAGR big guns, Hovland and Bauchou.
Hovland handed Jovan Rebula, a sophomore from South Africa, a 4 and 3
setback while Bauchou handled another pretty tough Auburn freshman, Wells
Padgett of Wichita, Kan., also by a 4 and 3 margin.
All three Texas teams were sent home in the quarterfinals,
although having three teams among the final
eight is pretty impressive. And when you’re a blogger who insists on
including a kid’s home town when you mention him or her, you realize Texas
produces as much golf talent as anywhere in the country, probably the world.
It was a big day for freshmen all around the Karsten Creek
layout. Alabama’s Davis Shore, a freshman from Knoxville, Tenn., rolled in a
15-foot birdie putt on the eighth hole, the 17th of his match with
Texas Tech’s Sandy Scott, a sophomore from Scotland, to clinch a 2 and 1
victory that secured a spot in the semifinals for the Tide.
Another Alabama freshman, Wilson Furr of Jackson, Miss.,
cruised to a 7 and 6 victory over the Red Raiders’ Kyle Hogan, a redshirt
freshman from Cypress, Texas. And Alabama’s third point came from Davis Riley,
a junior from Hattiesburg, Miss. who cooled off Ivan Ramirez, a junior from
Colombia who finished in a tie for fourth in the individual championship, with
a 2 and 1 victory.
Alabama’s veteran seniors, Lee Hodges of Ardmore, Tenn., and
Jonathan Hardee of Greer, S.C., sparked the rout of Duke in the semifinals.
Hodges claimed a 3 and 2 win over Chandler Eaton, a
sophomore from Alpharetta, Ga., while Hardee was also a 3 and 2 winner,
knocking off Alex Smalley, a junior from Wake Forest, N.C.
Shore rolled to a 6 and 5 decision over Duke’s Shuman, who
might not have had a whole left after his stunning win over Texas’ Ghim enabled
the Blue Devils to reach the semifinals.
And give Duke credit for that 3-2 victory over Texas. In
addition to Shuman’s win over Ghim, the low amateur at the Masters last month,
Smalley dusted Scottie Scheffler, a senior from Dallas and the low amateur in
last summer’s U.S. Open at Erin Hills, 5 and 4.
It was the end of two remarkable collegiate careers for Ghim
and Scheffler, key players in Texas’ run to the Final Match two years ago that
ended in a loss to Oregon and teammates on a U.S. team that rolled to a 19-7
victory over Great Britain & Ireland last summer at Los Angeles Country
Club.
The spotlight Wednesday will fall on two of the premier
programs in college men’s golf. Alabama’s coming after Oklahoma State, just
like it’s been all season long for the Cowboys.
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