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Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Texas men, Wake Forest women the winners in East Lake Cup


   The NCAA Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. seems like a dot off in the horizon.
   But the way to get there probably looked a little clearer for the Texas men and the Wake Forest women after they capped an impressive week with victories in their respective East Lake Cup finals Wednesday at a rainy and windy East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
   Texas, No. 25 in the latest Golfstat rankings, looks like it will be a force to be reckoned with in next spring’s college postseason as the Longhorns grabbed the top seed with a 10-under 278 performance in one day of stroke play Monday, rolled to a semifinal victory over Southeastern Conference power Vanderbilt and then polished off Big 12 rival Oklahoma State, ranked 57th, with a 3-2 victory in Wednesday’s final.
   It is not the Oklahoma State team that dominated college golf for much of the last two seasons, the Cowboys capturing the NCAA title in 2018 on their home course at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla. and falling to their rivals, the Longhorns, in the semifinals last spring at The Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark.
   It was a role reversal from last spring when an upstart Texas team knocked off the favored Cowboys. This time it was Oklahoma State that was the underdog trying to pull off the upset over the favored Longhorns.
   And for a long time Wednesday, it was Oklahoma State with the only point on the board as Brian Stark, a freshman from Kingsburg, Calif. claimed a 4 and 3 victory over Pierceson Coody, a sophomore from Plano, Texas and No. 10 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR).
   But the Longhorns had leads in the other four matches and ultimately held onto the leads in three of those matches to claim the East Lake Cup.
   Parker Coody, the other of the twin grandsons of 1971 Masters champion Charles Coody, claimed a 1-up decision over Oklahoma State’s Aman Gupta, a sophomore from Concord, N.C. The Longhorns’ veteran, Spencer Soosman, a senior from Westlake Village, Calif., rolled to a 5 and 3 victory over Hazen Newman, a freshman from Las Vegas.
   And the clincher came from Travis Vick, a freshman from Houston who pulled out a 1-up victory over Rayhan Thomas, a freshman from the United Arab Emirates.
   The last link to those dominant Oklahoma State teams of the last two seasons, Austin Eckroat, a junior from Edmond, Okla. and No. 21 in the WAGR, rallied to knock off Cole Hammer, a sophomore from Houston and No. 2 in the WAGR, 3 and 1, to pick up the final point for the Cowboys.
   Hammer’s rise in the WAGR was largely a function of a torrid stretch of golf that dated back to the spring of 2018 and continued throughout his freshman season at Texas and probably culminated with the Longhorns’ upset of Oklahoma State at The Blessings.
   He understandably cooled off for a while, although he seemed to regain his form quite suddenly with a 6 and 5 victory over veteran Irishman Conor Purcell during a stunning rally in Sunday singles by the United States that enabled it to retain the Walker Cup at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England.
   The Walker Cup Match was played in early September while the college golf season was already getting under way. It took a while for Hammer to get reacclimated, but this week he looked ready to concentrate on being a Texas Longhorn in the spring.
   The East Lake Cup often seems to be unkind to the highest-ranked team in the field. That was certainly the case this week as No. 1 Wake Forest suffered a 3-2 loss to No. 21 Vanderbilt in the match for third place, the Demon Deacons going 0-2 in match play.
   Vanderbilt got a 4 and 3 victory from William Moll, a freshman from Houston, over Alex Fitzpatrick, a sophomore from England and No 28 in the WAGR. Fitzpatrick was at Royal Liverpool, too, as a member of the Great Britain & Ireland side, so his fall campaign got off to a late start.
   Harrison Ott, a junior from Brownfield, Wis., and Matthew Riedel, a freshman from Houston, were the other winners for Vandy.
   The Commodores’ best player, John Augenstein, a senior from Owensboro, Ky. and No. 5 in the WAGR, lost to Eric Bae, a senior from Pinehurst, N.C. who earned a 3 and 2 decision.
   Augenstein also represented the United States in the Walker Cup Match right on the heels of a run to the final of the U.S. Amateur at the Pinehurst Resort & Country Club. Assuming he’s sticking around for the spring portion of his senior season, Augenstein will be the leading man for Vanderbilt.
Wake Forest’s other point came from Eugenio Chacarra, a sophomore from Spain who looked really tough at East Lake.
   The Wake Forest women, meanwhile, made a major statement at East Lake.
   The Demon Deacons, No. 4 in the latest Golfstat rankings, followed up a 3.5-1.5 victory over No. 8 Arizona in the semifinals with an impressive 4-1 win over No. 30 Auburn in Wednesday’s final.
   Emilia Migliaccio, a junior from Cary, N.C. and No. 14 in the Women’s WAGR, set the tone with a hard-fought 1-up victory over Auburn’s Megan Schofill, an impressive freshman from Monticello, Fla.
   Migliaccio passed up the U.S. Women’s Amateur last summer to represent the United States in the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru. She came home with two gold medals, one in the individual women’s competition and another as part of the winning U.S. mixed team. Her victory over Schofill kept her undefeated in college match-play competition.
   In the Wake Forest website coverage of the East Lake competition, Karen Lewellen, the Demon Deacons’ head coach, mentioned that the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship next spring will include a layer of match play.
   The SEC went that way a few years ago and I think it pays off if you can somehow survive four rounds of stroke play in the NCAA Championship and be one of the eight teams left standing for match play.
   Siyun Liu, a senior from China, picked up another point for Wake Forest with a 5 and 4 victory over Kaleigh Telfer, a junior from South Africa. In a battle of pals from the Old Sod, Lauren Walsh, a freshman from Ireland, downed Julie McCarthy, a junior from Ireland, 3 and 1, to deliver another point for the Demon Deacons.
   The final Wake Forest point was recorded by Rachel Kuehn, a freshman from Asheville, N.C. who claimed a 3 and 2 decision over Mychael O’Bryan, a junior from Hoover, Ala.
   The East Lake Cup was the third tournament title of the fall for the Demon Deacons, who topped an elite field in the ANNIKA Intercollegiate and won the Lady Paladin Invitational.
   Brooke Sansom, a redshirt sophomore from Pike Road, Ala., earned the lone point for the Tigers with a 4 and 3 victory over Vanessa Knecht, a sophomore from Switzerland. Knecht was huge as a freshman in Wake Forest’s run to the Final Match at The Blessings and earned co-medalist honors this week at East Lake.
   O’Bryan, Sansom, McCarthy and Telfer were in the starting lineup for Auburn in its run to the semifinals at The Blessings last spring. A win over Duke in the semifinals at East Lake would seem to indicate the Tigers are going to be making some noise in the spring.
   Wake Forest and reigning national champion Duke, ranked 11th, managed to avoid each other in Atlanta. Despite a 3-2 loss to Arizona in the third-place match, Duke was the qualifying medalist in stroke play with Ana Belac, a senior from Slovenia, earning co-medalist honors.
   Belac earned one of the points for the Blue Devils against Arizona. The other came from Erica Shepherd, the freshman from Greenwood, Ind. who looks like she will be a valuable addition to the Duke lineup. Shepherd, the 2017 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship winner, won both of her matches at East Lake.
   Not to be overlooked, Arizona got match wins from Therese Warner, a freshman from Kennewick, Wash., Ya Chan Chung, a sophomore from Taiwan and Vivian Hou, a freshman from Taiwan who knocked off Duke’s Jaravee Boonchant, a junior from Thailand and No. 27 in the Women’s WAGR, 3 and 1.
   As I mentioned in my first post on the East Lake Cup, there’s no guarantee everybody is coming back for the spring portion of the wraparound 2019-’20 season. To me, it’s one of the idiosyncrasies of college golf that help make it endlessly interesting. That and the ton of talented players, guys and gals, from every corner of the planet.

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