Seventy-seven.
That’s the number that has haunted, motivated and eaten at Jerilyn White since last year’s NCAA Championships.
White, in her fourth year at Oregon and now the undisputed leader of the Ducks, took 77 strokes — five over par — in the final round of the 2000 NCAAs at Sunriver as her team plummeted from third to 11th overall on that final day.
“It goes through my mind day after day about that final round,” White said. “More than anything, that gives me a reason to get back to nationals.”
White is on the verge of making it back to the NCAA Championships in Howey-on-the-Hills, Fla., this season. If she and the rest of the Oregon golfers can perform well at this week’s Pacific-10 Conference Championships and the NCAA Regionals in two weeks, White will get another shot on college golf’s biggest stage.
This year, White will enter the postseason with a winning streak. The Salem native was hotter than she’s ever been this winter, and she won medalist honors for the first time in her career at the Peg Barnard Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif., on April 14. In five tournaments this winter, White has placed seventh, third, 16th, 12th and first.
“She’s going in on a high,” Oregon head coach Shannon Rouillard said.
In the fall, the only things high for White were her scores. The senior entered 2000-01 with lofty expectations of becoming the second-ever All-American women’s golfer at Oregon, but averaged a 77 — there’s that number again — or above at each tournament of the fall season. She placed in a tournament’s top 20 only once, at the Hawaii Fall Classic, where she ended up in 14th.
White came back from winter break with something to prove. She started off the 2001 season with a seventh-place finish at the Arizona Wildcat Invitational, and her turnaround was launched from there. She led the Ducks at every tournament after that and now hopes to lead the team to a prosperous postseason.
The senior attributes her 360-degree turn to a golf club that can make or break a golfer: the putter. As she practiced for the last time before the postseason Friday, White stood on a practice green at the Eugene Country Club and drained five six-foot putts in a row.
“I got a new putter and got my putting going, which I had kind of been struggling with for awhile,” White said. “Now, it’s just giving me a lot of confidence going into Pac-10s.”
White’s legacy at Oregon will last much longer than a few 15-foot putts. She was the only underclassman starter on a senior-laden team in 1999-2000 and finished 60th in the country last season, after a ranking of 96th in 1998-99. She is currently ranked 35th in the nation.
But those accomplishments don’t tap into the biggest impact she has on the team: her leadership on and off the course.
The Ducks are currently in ninth at the Pac-10 Championships and are being led by Jerilyn White, a three-year starter.
“She’s not only our captain but she’s definitely a leader by example,” Rouillard said. “She has, throughout the entire season, led this team all the way around, on the golf course and off the golf course, in terms of what she adds to this team.”
White has worn the crown as team leader with the ease of a prom queen this season. She strolls down the fairways of the Eugene Country Club, or whatever course the Ducks may be playing, with a confidence that all great golfers possess.
“Underclassmen see from her what will be expected of them in the future,” Rouillard said. “Her experience and her knowledge of the game, and the fact that she’s such a mentally tough player, make her a perfect leader.”
Another quality shared by leaders, golfers and college students — which White possesses, according to Rouillard — is humility. White is so unpretentious that she won’t even discuss her scores with other players, or her coach, when she’s playing in a tournament.
“She thinks that she does better when I don’t know how she’s playing,” Rouillard said. “I didn’t even realize she was shooting a 68 at Stanford. If she thinks she plays better by not telling me, that’s fine. I really don’t have to worry about Jerilyn.”
White doesn’t have much to worry about any more this season, except the Pac-10 Championships, the NCAA Regionals and possibly the NCAA Championships.
Unless, of course, that evil number 77 shows up again.
White just hopes the only number she sees at those important postseason tournaments is 67 — and, at the end of the season, the number one, for the national place of the Ducks.
