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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