Three tournaments. Three-straight sub-top-10 finishes. Three weeks of rest. If good things come in threes, then the Oregon men’s golf team is hoping the reverse holds true and the trend can turn itself around.
“We were not nearly as successful as I would like to have seen,” head coach Steve Nosler said about his team’s most recent tournament appearance. “We have not been playing complete tournaments lately.”
Oregon, coming off its third tournament of the spring season, finished 13th at the Cleveland Golf Classic on Tuesday and will have three weeks off before it hosts the Duck Invitational in Eugene March 24-25.
“I’m surprised just how well we’ve played and ending up as far back (in the field) as we’ve been,” Nosler said. “We haven’t been as competitive as I thought we could be.”
The Ducks’ recent struggles have often come after a successful opening round, causing Nosler to search for answers to Oregon’s mid-tournament slides.
“We have played well in opening rounds, in middle rounds we have played poor and then played well again in the final rounds,” Nosler said. “We are having the most difficulty with the second round of 36 holes. It could be a concentration thing, which is something we need to get a gut-check on.”
There is one silver lining in all this. Oregon, playing in the most loaded conference in the nation, has played even with many teams that have come on strong as of late.
“The Pacific-10 conference is by far the strongest in the nation, that’s not even a question,” Nosler said. “Arizona State has played well all three times we have seen them.”
The Ducks have been right on the heels of such teams as Arizona State and Stanford. The Ducks out-played Arizona State in the second round of the Cleveland Golf Classic, drew even in the third round but were unable to match Arizona State’s amazing first-round score, distancing itself from the Ducks. Stanford beat Oregon for the first time this spring season in the Cleveland Golf Classic, making that its only win in five tries against the Ducks in the 2002-03 season.
Oregon will travel to Seattle during the weekend where it will have a 36-hole four-way match against Washington, Oregon State and Western Washington on Saturday. The competition will not count toward any official standings, but will give the Ducks a chance to play the field where the NCAA West Regionals will be held, assuming the Ducks can qualify.
“I hope renewed confidence can come out of all this,” Nosler said. “We do have the talent and can shoot the numbers to compete, we just need it sooner rather than later.”
Scott Archer is a freelance writer
for the Emerald.