The Oregon men’s and women’s golf teams continue closing out the regular season this week as the men — fresh off their first-place finish at the Western Intercollegiate last week — head to Tempe, Ariz., for the ASU Thunderbird Invitational played at the 7,037-yard Karsten Golf Course. The women will compete at the Peg Barnard Invitational in Stanford, Calif. — their final tournament before the Pacific-10 Conference Championships.
The men are riding momentum heading into this week’s tournament thanks to strong performances by sophomores Matt Ma and Jay Snyder. Ma has three top-five finishes in five tournaments this season. The Ducks have finished in the top five in their past two tournaments and face stiff competition at the ASU Thunderbird Invitational; five of the nation’s top 25 teams are scheduled to compete. Aside from Oregon, the 14-team field
includes a dozen teams west of the Mississippi River, including No. 2 UNLV, No. 8 Brigham Young, No. 11 UCLA, No. 17 Arizona and host school No. 15 Arizona State.
California, Colorado State, Hawaii, Kansas State, Penn State, Pepperdine, Stanford and Texas Tech will also
be competing.
Representing Oregon will be the same five golfers who claimed the Western Intercollegiate title. Leading the Ducks will be juniors Chris Dukeminier, Gregg LaVoie and Justin St. Clair, who finished tied for 39th at last year’s tournament, in which Oregon finished 14th. Snyder and Ma are scheduled to play as well.
Following a disheartening 12th-place finish at last week’s Ping/ASU Invitational, the women are set to end their regular season on the right foot. Oregon head coach Shannon Rouillard is sending her usual suspects to compete: senior Johnna Nealy, juniors Erin Andrews and Michelle Timpani, sophomore Kim McCready and freshman Victoria Wenslow. Andrews aims to continue her streak of top-20 finishes. The Las Vegas native has finished ninth, 15th and 16th in the past three tournaments and is sporting a 76.1 scoring average going into Saturday’s first round.
Despite their disappointing finish last week, the Ducks have finished in the top five of three tournaments this spring and appear fine-tuned for the conference championships. They face four Pac-10 schools this week and a number of other teams they have competed against this season. No. 6 Washington comes into the tournament as the front-runner of the four ranked teams included in the field of 14. Other Pac-10 teams competing include No. 12 Stanford, No. 22 Washington State and Oregon State.
The tournament is scheduled for two rounds with 18 holes being played both Saturday and Sunday. At last year’s Peg Barnard Invitational, Oregon finished ninth. In 2001, the Ducks finished first.