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Monday, May 28, 2018

Oklahoma State earns top seed in NCAA Championship; Augusta's Everett the individual champion


   The good news for Oklahoma State, No. 1 in the latest Golfstat rankings, is that Cowboys finished at the top of the heap when the smoke cleared at the end of four days of qualifying for match play in the NCAA Championship.
   There’s more good news, although the site of the last four days of stroke play and of the next two days of match play has been known for a long time. Oklahoma State always knew it would be a home game if it could get to the NCAA Championship on its home course, Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla., that it would be playing on home turf if it could get to the match-play portion of the tournament.
   The bad news, which you can’t really do anything about, is the match-play draw the Cowboys ended up with when the stroke-play qualifying was completed on a Memorial Day Monday.  Oklahoma State’s quarterfinal opponent Tuesday morning is No. 2 Texas A&M, which nosed out No. 4 Vanderbilt for the eighth and final berth in match play.
   And if the Cowboys can get past the tough Aggies, they’ll get the winner of No. 3 Oklahoma, the defending national champion, and No. 9 Auburn, which claimed the Southeastern Conference title in a match-play final, Tuesday afternoon.
   An Oklahoma State-Oklahoma semifinal match in Stillwater is too delicious to imagine, so I won’t even try. Oklahoma State and Oklahoma are facing such formidable opponents, they can’t, not for one second, think about anything but the team in front of them.
   And while it’s a tough road the Cowboys face, it’s not like you can get to the final eight teams that survive stroke play and expect to get an easy matchup. It’s just not going to happen.
   Karsten Creek played tougher than it had all weekend Monday and Oklahoma State, led by Matthew Wolff, a freshman from Agoura Hills, Calif., and Kristoffer Ventura, a senior from Norway, put up a solid 7-over-par 295 over its 7,460-yard, par-72 home track for an even-par 1,152 total.
   The Cowboys finished eight shots clear of No. 28 Duke, which was 30 shots worse than the course-record 12-under 276 it shot in Sunday’s third round, with a 306. But it was still good enough to give the Blue Devils a runnerup finish at 8-over 1,160.
   No. 13 Texas Tech, which was solid all weekend, finished up with a 300 that left the Red Raiders in third at 9-over 1,161. Those aforementioned Oklahoma Sooners were right there in fourth, matching Oklahoma State’s 295 for a 1,163 total.
   Auburn, with a solid 9-over 297, finished fifth, four shots behind Oklahoma at 15-over 1,167.
No. 6 Alabama, which lost that SEC title match to its in-state rival Auburn, and No. 15 Texas, which shared second in the Big 12 Championship with Oklahoma State behind Oklahoma, showed a lot of character Monday.
   They were outside the top eight when the day began. The Crimson Tide fired a 6-over 294, the second-best round of the day, and the Longhorns carded a 5-over 293, the best round of the day, to share sixth place at 16-over 1,168.
   Texas A&M was solid all weekend and the Aggies’ 10-over 298 gave them a 17-over 1,169 total, one shot better than their SEC rival Vanderbilt. The Commodores’ 304 was one shot too many.
That makes the final eight four from the Big 12, three from the SEC and Duke from the ACC. With a fourth SEC team one excruciating stroke out of the top eight.
   Wolff’s even-par 72 Monday made him Oklahoma State’s top overall individual finisher in the group tied for seventh at 3-under 285. Ventura also matched par after struggling in the second and third rounds to finish among the group tied for 48th at 9-over 297.
   Viktor Hovland, a sophomore from Norway and the No. 7 player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), entered the final round in contention for the individual title, five shots out of the lead. He struggled to a 3-over 75, but he still finished among the group tied for 11th at 1-under 287.
   Austin Eckroat, a freshman from Edmond, Okla., and Zach Bauchou, a junior from Forest, Va. and No. 23 in the WAGR, each finished up with a 4-over 76. Eckroat ended up in the group tied for 19th in the individual standings at 1-over 289 and Bauchou was in the group tied for 52nd at 11-over 299.
   They’ll be a tough group to take three matches from and that’s what a match-play opponent will have to do to deny the Cowboys a national championship on their home course.
   The individual championship? There was drama there, too.
   Augusta’s Broc Everett, a senior from West Des Moines, Iowa, carded a 1-under 71 and ended up in a playoff for the national championship with Auburn’s cool-as-a-cucumber freshman, Brandon Mancheno of Jacksonville, Fla., at 7-under 281. Mancheno matched par in the final round with a 72.
   Everett birdied the par-5 18th while Mancheno made par as Everett claimed the individual crown. Mancheno has some more golf to play in Stillwater and a bright future in college golf, depending on how long he plans to remain an amateur.
   You need only look to the player who finished a shot behind Everett and Mancheno to measure the quality of their accomplishment in getting into a playoff for the NCAA individual title.
   That would be Texas’ Doug Ghim, a senior from Arlington Heights, Ill. who finished alone in third at 6-under 212 after an even-par 72 in the final round.
   That would be Doug Ghim, the No. 1 player in the WAGR, the runnerup in 37 holes in the U.S. Amateur final last summer, the guy who went 4-0 in a 19-7 victory for the United States over Great Britain & Ireland in the Walker Cup Match, the low amateur in The Masters.
   You think he’ll be a tough opponent for Duke’s Jake Shuman, a senior from Needham, Mass., when the Longhorns take on the Blue Devils in a quarterfinal match Tuesday morning? Yeah, me too.
   Another shot back in a tie for fourth was the No. 6 player in the WAGR, Illinois’ Dylan Meyer, a senior from Evansville, Ind. Meyer capped his outstanding career with the Fighting Illini by posting the only sub-70 round of the day, a 3-under 69 that left him at 5-under 283.
   Joining Meyer at that figure was Texas Tech’s Ivan Ramirez, a junior from Colombia who was near the top of the leaderboard all weekend, finishing up with a 1-over 73.
   Ghim’s Texas senior classmate, Scottie Scheffler of Dallas, finished alone in sixth at 4-under 284 after a final round of 1-over 73. Scheffler, the low amateur in last summer’s U.S. Open at Erin Hills, was also a teammate of Ghim’s on that winning U.S. Walker Cup team last summer.
   They were there for the Longhorns’ run to the NCAA’s Final Match two years ago, a match in which Texas started with a 1-0 deficit due to an untimely injury to Beau Hossler, who keeps showing up on PGA Tour leaderboards these days.
   The winner of the Texas-Duke match will get the winner of the Alabama-Texas Tech match in Tuesday afternoon’s semifinals.
   You think Alabama would like to get another shot at an Auburn team that beat the Tide in the SEC final with an NCAA title on the line this time? You think Texas would like to get a shot at Oklahoma or Oklahoma State in a potential Final Match? You think Texas A&M wouldn’t mind taking out its old Southwest Conference rivals Oklahoma State and Oklahoma on its way to maybe a matchup with its old Thanksgiving Day football rival Texas for the title?
   Pretty sure The Golf Channel will be there early and often as it all unfolds. It is going to be quite a two days before a national champion is crowned.



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