The Oregon men’s golf team will get to take a few more swings this year.
After finishing their regular season with an eighth-place finish at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships last month, the Ducks received one of the 27 invitations to the NCAA West Regional, to be held at the Karsten Golf Course May 17-19 in Tempe, Ariz.. The postseason berth is the first in two years for Oregon and a mark of success for its rookie coach.
“I’m very excited and pleased to get a regional bid in my first year,” Oregon coach Casey Martin said in a release. “All the credit goes to the guys who really stepped up in the spring and made Oregon into a deserving team.”
Things started to turn around for the Ducks in March, when they finished sixth, third and first in three tournaments in a six-week span. The victory in that hot stretch came at the ASU Thunderbird Invitational, played on the same course as the upcoming regionals.
At that event in April, Oregon upset a star-studded field that included national powers Arizona State and USC, which dominated the Pac-10 Championships last month, winning by a massive 36 strokes.
The Trojans and the Sun Devils are seeded fourth and seventh respectively, joining Stanford, UCLA and Arizona in the top ten. The Ducks earned the No. 20 seed in the tournament, one of nine Pac-10 schools to receive an invite. Only Washington State was left out of the event. Washington was given the No. 12 seed, and Oregon State was placed just ahead of Martin’s team at No. 18. The top ten finishers after the 54-hole tournament will advance to the NCAA Championships in Williamsburg, Va. in three weeks.
Oregon has qualified for the national tournament four times, the last time in 2003. This season, the Ducks increased their tournament win total from one last season to two this season and lowered their scores markedly from last season’s efforts at the Thunderbird Invitational and the Pac-10 Championships.
“Our goal now is not just to be happy to get to the regional, but to advance from there,” Martin said.
If the Ducks are to move on from the regionals, they will have to do it without a wealth of experience. Only senior Matt Ma has previously played in an NCAA regional. In Oregon’s last appearance in 2005, the Hawaii native struggled, finishing in 128th place. The Ducks narrowly missed the cut that year, finishing just six shots out of a national berth.
Although they may not have experience playing in the postseason, the Ducks know how to dominate in the desert. Oregon led from wire to wire on the Tempe course in April and saw its leader Derek Sipe finish in second place individually, thanks to a blistering 12 under par performance. Although Sipe was the star of the show, Oregon benefited from solid tournaments from the rest of the squad. Joey Benedetti finished at par, while Ma and Zeke Reyna finished at one and two over par.
“We’re ham-and-egging it better, covering each other’s bad rounds,” Ma said before the Pac-10 Championships.
The Ducks took a step back at the Pac-10 Championships. Oregon was tied for third after the first round of the 72-hole tournament but fell to last place before recovering on the final day and salvaging an eighth place finish. Sipe and Benedetti tied for Oregon’s best finish, at one over par, good enough for 19th place.
The Ducks will begin the regional paired with Colorado State and California at 7 a.m. on May 17.