With college golf about to hit the pause button, The Golf
Channel brings you the East Lake Cup.
There is nothing bad about the East Lake Cup. Anything that
gets college golf on television is a good thing.
The event is designed to bring together the four men’s and
women’s semifinalists from last spring’s NCAA Championship at The Blessings
Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark. Reigning men’s champion Stanford appears to
have declined its invitation, replaced by Wake Forest, the Demon Deacons having
given the Cardinal all they wanted in a 3-2 quarterfinal loss at The Blessings.
The format is a shortened version of the NCAA Championship
with a round of medal play to crown individual champions and set the pairings
for match play. And any opportunity to play some high-level match play is
welcomed by coaches who have designs on finishing among the top eight in next
spring’s NCAA Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz.
College golf is a weird thing in that really good players
can head for the next level at seemingly any time. It happens a lot in the
two-plus month break between the fall campaign and the start of the spring
portion of the season that will culminate in the NCAA Championship at Grayhawk.
The fast and furious fall campaign always sees a few freshmen, anxious to
prove themselves at the collegiate level and with probably a little lighter
academic load than they will experience in later semesters, come charging out
of the gate and make sometimes spectacular first impressions.
And then there is the setting for the East Lake Cup, East
Lake Golf Club, the annual site of Tour Championship in Atlanta. It is a quality
golf course challenging some of the best players in college golf. Probably a
few Georgia Tech guys hanging out, telling people, “Hey, Wake isn’t even the
best team in the ACC.”
Somehow the Texas men, who stunned defending national
champion Oklahoma State in last spring’s semifinals only to fall to a veteran
Stanford team in the Final Match at The Blessings, came to the East Lake Cup at
No. 26 in the latest Golfstat rankings.
The Longhorns looked better than that in claiming the top
seed for match play Monday with a sparkling 10-under-par 278 total over an East
Lake Course that plays to 7,413 yards and a par of 72 for the guys.
No. 2 Wake Forest could boast the individual champion in
Mark Power, a freshman from Ireland who fired a 5-under 67 to help the Demon
Deacons finished second, six shots behind Texas at 4-under 284.
No. 44 Oklahoma State barely resembles the team that
dominated college golf the last two seasons, but the Cowboys won’t stay down
for long. They finished in third place with a 292 total. Oklahoma State will take
on Wake Forest in Tuesday’s semifinal matches.
No. 20 Vanderbilt struggled to a fourth-place finish with a
13-over 301 total, but there is nothing predictable about match play and the
Commodores won’t back down from the challenge of taking on Texas in their
semifinal match. That goes double for Vandy senior John Augenstein, the U.S. Amateur runnerup from Owensboro, Ky.
The next four players in the individual standings behind
Power were wearing burnt orange.
Pierceson Coody, one of the twin grandsons of 1971 Masters
champion Charles Coody out of Plano, Texas and No. 10 in the World Amateur Golf
Ranking (WAGR), and Travis Vick, a freshman from Houston, shared second place
in the individual chase, each carding a 3-under 69.
Cole Hammer, a sophomore from Houston and No. 2 in the WAGR,
and Parker Coody, the other Coody twin from Plano, were tied for fourth place,
each posting a 2-under 70. Hammer and Vanderbilt's Augenstein were teammates on the winning U.S. Walker Cup team at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England in early September.
Rounding out the Texas lineup was the Longhorns’ veteran,
Spencer Soosman, a senior from Westlake Village, Calif. who carded a 5-over 77
and was in 19th place in the individual standings.
Power, obviously one of those impressive freshmen I was
referring to earlier, made eight birdies, five of them on the back nine at East
Lake to claim medalist honors.
Austin Eckroat, a junior from Edmond, Okla., is the last
remnant of that Oklahoma State team that won a national championship on its
home course at Karsten Creek Golf Club in the spring of 2018 and appeared to be
headed for a second straight NCAA crown last spring when the Cowboys ran into a
fired-up Texas team in the semifinals at The Blessings.
Eckroat finished alone in sixth place in the individual
standings Monday with a 1-under 71.
The Duke women have retained a lot of the top
players that propelled the Blue Devils to a national championship last spring
at The Blessings while adding a couple of stud freshmen.
Duke, behind individual co-medalist Ana Belac, a senior from
Slovenia, grabbed the top seed for match play with a 2-under 286 total on an
East Lake layout that plays to 6,240 yards and a par of 72 for the gals. The
Blue Devils are No. 12 in the latest Golfstat rankings.
Belac was 2-over for her round after making a double bogey
on the 11th hole, but went 5-under the rest of the way, nearly
reaching the par-5 18th hole in two and nearly chipping in for
eagle. She tapped in for her eighth birdie of the round and a 3-under 69 that
gave her co-medalist honors along with Wake Forest’s Vanessa Knecht, a
sophomore from Switzerland.
No. 8 Arizona, the 2018 national champion at Karsten Creek,
was two shots behind Duke in second place with an even-par 288. No. 4 Wake
Forest, behind Knecht, was another four shots behind Arizona in third place
with a 4-over 292 total.
No. 30 Auburn was three shots behind the Demon Deacons in
fourth place with a 7-over 295 total. The Tigers, representing the Southeastern
Conference, will draw Duke, out of the ACC, in Tuesday’s semifinals while
Arizona, out of the Pac-12, will get Duke’s ACC rival Wake Forest in the other
semifinal. While Duke defeated Wake Forest for the national championship at The
Blessings, the Demon Deacons are the reigning ACC champions.
Backing up Belac for the Blue Devils was Jaravee Boonchant,
a junior from Thailand and No. 27 in the Women’s WAGR who finished in a tie for
fourth place with a 1-under 71.
One of the top freshmen in the country, Erica Shepherd, the
left-hander from Greenwood, Ind., matched par with a 72 and was tied for sixth
place.
Shepherd arrived in Durham with a pair of USGA titles on her
resume. She won the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship in 2017 at Boone Valley
Golf Club in Augusta, Mo. Last spring, Shepherd teamed with her pal Megan
Furtney of Elgin, Ill. to capture the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball
Championship at Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville, Fla. Oh yeah, Furtney’s
on the Duke roster, too, although she’s not in the lineup for the East Lake
Cup.
Gina Kim, a sophomore from Chapel Hill, N.C. and No. 31 in
the Women’s WAGR, finished alone in 11th place with a 74. Kim was in
contention for a long time in last spring’s U.S. Women’s Open at the Country
Club of Charleston before settling for a tie for 12th place and
low-amateur honors.
Rounding out the Duke lineup was Amanda Wang, a junior from
China who finished in a tie for 19th place with a 79.
Knecht, so clutch as a freshman in helping a veteran Wake
Forest team reach the Final Match last spring at The Blessings, had five
birdies and two bogeys to get her share of medalist honors with Belac with a
3-under 69.
Arizona’s Therese Warner, a freshman from Kennewick, Wash.,
finished alone in third place, two shots behind Belac and Knecht with a 2-under
70.
Warner’s teammate and fellow freshman, Vivian Hou of Taiwan,
earned a share of fourth place with Duke’s Boonchant by posting a 1-under 71.
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