If you just tuned in to The Golf Channel for the NCAA Championship’s
Final Match Wednesday and watched Oklahoma State roll to the title with a dominating
5-0 victory over Alabama in front of an adoring home crowd at Karsten Creek
Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla., maybe you thought it was easy for the Cowboys.
It was the 11th NCAA championship for one of the
storied programs in Division I men’s golf, but the first since 2006 for the
Cowboys. More to the point, it was the first since the NCAA added a layer of
match play on top of what had historically been a stroke-play event in 2009.
It is never easy to win an NCAA Championship anymore.
Oklahoma State has had some great teams in the 10 seasons that match play has
become a part of the NCAA Championship. It’s not just going out there and
freewheeling it in a stroke-play event, making a bunch of birdies, go low and
win.
This will look easy in the record book, Oklahoma State,
coming into the NCAA Championship on its home course ranked No. 1 by Golfstat, claiming the top seed by
winning the stroke-play qualifying and then winning three matches, the final in
dominating fashion.
But you didn’t hear the collective gulp among the Cowboy
faithful when the stroke-play qualifying was finished Monday and they realized
that the road to the Final Match was going to go through No. 2 Texas A&M
and either No. 3 Oklahoma, the defending national champion, or No. 9 Auburn,
winner of the Southeastern Conference championship in a match-play format.
But, as they had season long, the Oklahoma State players put
their heads down and just played. As big an advantage as playing in your home
course is, I would argue that the Cowboys’ biggest advantage in the postseason was
playing the Big 12 Championship on a U.S. Open/PGA Championship-caliber course
like Southern Hills Country Club and being selected to go to the Columbus
Regional and taking on The Ohio State University Golf Club’s Scarlet Course.
They’re the kinds of golf courses that build the kind of
mental toughness you need to survive three rounds of match play in, what, 40
hours, over three of the toughest teams in college golf.
It was estimated that more than 3,000 Oklahoma State backers
roamed the fairways of Karsten Creek Wednesday and I’m sure that gave the
Cowboys a huge emotional boost. But the team did a lot of heavy lifting to give
itself that opportunity. Oklahoma State didn’t get exempted into the Final
Match.
But yes, when they got there, the Cowboys took care of
business. Alabama was ranked sixth. The Crimson Tide had been the runnerup to
Auburn in that SEC match-play final. They finished fourth in a Stockton
Regional that got stood on its head by a couple of Big 12 upstarts in regional champion
Kansas and Iowa State.
Oklahoma State has two players among the top 25 in the World
Amateur Golf Ranking, No. 7 Viktor Hovland, a sophomore from Norway, and No. 23
Zach Bauchou, a junior from Forest, Va.
They were matched up against Alabama’s veteran seniors, Lee
Hodges of Ardmore, Tenn. and Jonathan Hardee of Greer, S.C. And Hovland and
Bauchou just crushed them.
Bauchou was unconscious. When he chipped in for eagle at the
ninth to complete an outward 29, he was 7-up on a stunned Hardee. It was over
two holes later, Bauchou giving the Cowboys their first point in an 8 and 7 romp.
Match play isn’t so draining when you’re playing like that.
Hovland completed a 3-0 run through match play with a 4 and
3 victory over Hodges for Oklahoma State’s second point.
After that, it was just a matter of time for Oklahoma State.
Matthew Wolff, the Cowboys’ talented freshman from Agoura Hills, Calif. drained a
12-foot birdie putt to complete a 4 and 3 victory over Davis Riley, a junior from
Hattiesburg, Miss., and it was over.
Moments later, Kristoffer Ventura, a senior from Norway, completed
a 4 and 3 victory over Alabama’s talented freshman, Wilson Furr of
Jackson, Miss.
Oklahoma State had another freshman who was rock solid all year,
Austin Eckroat of Edmond, Okla. He was 1-up on Alabama’s Davis Shore, a
freshman from Knoxville, Tenn., when the Cowboys clinched and was awarded a
full point. Eckroat had authored the clinching points in two hard-won matches Tuesday
over Texas A&M and Auburn.
“I have never seen an atmosphere like this,” head coach Alan
Bratton told the Oklahoma State website. “I am so proud again for our Oklahoma
State family and Cowboy golf. This is bigger than just Cowboy golf. Our fans,
they turn out. They did that in a big way.
“I’m glad the world got to see it and I’m glad these guys got
to live it. It is certainly not about me. It is about off of these players and
all of the former players we had. I can’t tell you how many former players we
had in the crowd this week. All of us were standing on their shoulders this
week.”
Don’t kid yourself, it is never easy to win an NCAA
Championship in the match-play era with so many talented players out there. Bretton’s
Cowboys just made it look easy Wednesday.
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