Like a light bulb that flickers on and off before going completely out, the No. 20 Oregon men’s golf team may have officially thrown the switch off on the 2000-01 season this weekend.
At the very least, the Ducks need to throw in a new bulb before the NCAA West Regionals in three weeks.
Oregon finished eighth at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships in Palo Alto, Calif., over the weekend. The Ducks ended the tournament with their best round, a combined 351, to secure eighth place.
The story of the tournament for Oregon was the play of Aaron Byers and John Ellis. Byers’ 68 in the first round carried him through to the final day, and he ended in 12th overall. Ellis’ standout round came on the last day when he shot a 69 to end up in 19th.
The story of the tournament was the pack of teams that finished around Oregon and the even tighter race for first. While the Ducks finished eighth, they ended up only 10 strokes behind the fifth-place team, No. 38 UCLA. Sixth-place and No. 41 Stanford was only two strokes ahead of Oregon, while seventh-place Washington State finished a mere stroke ahead of the Ducks.
At the top of the team race, No. 6 Southern California stunned the field to take first by four strokes over No. 4 Arizona State. The Trojans’ win broke the Sun Devils’ streak of six straight Pac-10 crowns.
No. 18 Arizona finished third, four strokes behind Arizona State, while No. 29 Washington finished fourth overall.
The Ducks will continue their postseason run at the NCAA West Regionals in Corvallis May 17-19. If Oregon does well at Regionals, it will travel to the NCAA Championships later this month.