The Oregon men’s golf team ended its regular season with a finish equal to Pacific-10 Conference foe No. 24 Arizona last weekend at the U.S. Intercollegiate in Palo Alto, Calif. Both teams carded a combined team score
of 878 at the par 70, 6,742-yard Stanford Golf Course, giving Oregon its second consecutive seventh-place finish in tournament play.
Sophomore Matt Ma led the charge for the Ducks, shooting a final round 71 on Sunday that placed him in a three-way tie for second place with Rob Grube of Stanford and Taylor Wood of No. 19 Southern California. Ma has finished in the top three in two of the past three tournaments, and his continued success has not gone unnoticed.
“Matt has been in a real solid groove for the last four tournaments,” Oregon head coach Steve Nosler said. “It’s really exciting seeing him get into that zone.”
Ma’s final score of 209 matched his best finish since donning the green and yellow uniform for Oregon. He has now breached the top 11 in five of the seven tournaments he has played in this year. Ma’s teammates peppered the middle of the leaderboard.
Junior Gregg LaVoie shot a 71 on Sunday to finish tied for 36th at
12 over 222. Other Oregon finishers included Jay Snyder (225), Justin St. Clair (226) and Chris Duke
minier (227), who tied for 54th, 61st and 65th, respectively.
The hunt for the team title ended with a whimper rather than a bang as USC (846) left second-place finisher San Diego State trailing in the wake of a 17-stroke lead, giving the Trojans their first team crown of the season. The Aztecs finished at 863, edging them past a tightly packed bunch of the 18-team field. Fresno State followed in third at 867, leaving No. 15 UCLA (868) settling for fourth with a one-stroke lead over host Stanford (869), who rounded out the top five.
No. 10 Arizona State’s Pat Moore finished three strokes below par in the final round, good enough for the individual title. His final score of 208 gave him a slight nod over Ma, who carded a 209.
Moore led the Sun Devils to a sixth-place finish at 872. Six strokes behind, the Ducks and Wildcats tied for seventh place with San Jose State (881) taking ninth and Washington (882) closing the top ten.
Oregon has much to gain from its seventh-place finish with regard to earning an invitation to the 2005 NCAA West Regional next month. The Ducks finished ahead of numerous teams in both their region and the Pac-10 Conference who competed at the U.S. Intercollegiate, including California (888), Oregon State (893) and Washington.
Next for Oregon are the Pac-10 Conference Championships next weekend in Walla Walla, Wash., scheduled for one-a-day rounds April 25-27.