The Oregon women’s golf team finished the opening round of the NCAA West Regional in 11th place Thursday.
According to the team, that’s not such a bad thing.
The Ducks fired a 17-over 305 on the 6,159-yard, par-72 Stanford Golf Course in Stanford, Calif., and currently sit only two strokes back of eighth-place Ohio State. The top eight finishers from the West regional will advance to the NCAA Championships May 18-21 in Auburn, Ala.
“It’s a good feeling when you get off to a start like this because it puts us in a position to finish in the top eight,” Oregon head coach Shannon Rouillard said. “We still want to play better tomorrow and focus on playing a solid round of golf, but if we could improve a little bit each day from here we should be in pretty good shape.”
Despite sending five individuals who had never competed in the regionals, the Ducks couldn’t help but feel a bit lucky to be playing a course the team has seen many times
before.
“We’ve certainly had our ups and downs here,” Rouillard said. “But we tried to remember our good rounds and what made us successful in the past in hopes that we would play the course well in the future.”
Sophomores Erin Andrews and Therese Wenslow led the Ducks on day one, both of them carding rounds of 2-over 74. Wenslow, looking to rebound from a disappointing showing at the conference championships, carded three birdies, five bogeys and ten pars en route to posting her best individual round at the Stanford course and a tie for 21st.
Andrews, who has struggled since finishing seventh in the first event of the spring season — the Duck Invitational — regained her top form by draining three consecutive birdies on holes 18, one and two to move to 2-under for the round. Andrews could not keep her momentum coming in — bogeying four out of the last five holes to finish tied with Wenslow.
“Erin and Therese certainly came through for us on a day when we really needed their scores,” Rouillard said. “It was really exciting to watch Erin get those three straight birdies. She was really in control and composed today.”
The rest of the Ducks struggled in the first round. Junior Johnna Nealy carded a 6-over 78 to finish in a tie for 55th, while sophomore Michelle Timpani shot a 7-over 79 in the first round to finish tied for 64th. Freshman Kimberly McCready struggled to an 9-over 81 to finish in a tie for 84th.
As a team, No. 2 UCLA grabbed the first round lead by shooting a 6-under 282. The Bruins received a 5-under 67 from individual leader Hannah Jun and a 2-under 70 from teammate Charlotte Mayorkas. No. 3 California finished in second at 2-over 290, while No. 23 Stanford and No. 12 Washington finished in third and fourth, respectively.
Only six strokes separated teams finishing between fifth and 12th. Pepperdine finished fifth with a 300, while favorable scoring conditions in the afternoon helped push lower seeded teams Washington State and Denver into a tie for sixth at 302. Ohio State was eighth, followed by No. 8 Georgia and Texas Tech who tied for ninth at 304.
Oregon will tee off its second round today at 11:50 a.m. and will be paired with Georgia and Texas.