After missing the cut at the NCAA Championships last weekend in Bradenton, Florida, Oregon men’s golf finished its successful season with a 23rd-place finish in the tournament.
A few days following the end of its season, the Emerald‘s Will Denner spoke to head coach Casey Martin as he reflected on the season, the challenges of the Concession Golf course during NCAA Championships and looked ahead to next year’s pivotal season, in which the Ducks will host the men’s and women’s NCAA Championships at the Eugene Country Club.
At the NCAA Championships, your team got off to a pretty good start, but momentum seemed to get lost as the tournament went on. Where did it start going wrong for you guys?
We had really good starts in both the first and second rounds but we weren’t able to capitalize. The first two rounds we had a couple players have a tough time finishing. (Zach) Foushee had a triple-bogey on 17 in the first round and (Brandon) McIver had a quadruple bogey on the final hole of the second round. Both times we kind of lost momentum and it took the wind out of our sails a little bit.
We were ready to overcome it on that third round – guys were focused and gave great effort – but we just didn’t have it that day.
What kinds of challenges did the Concessions Club course present?
(Laughs) This is the hardest golf course I’d ever seen, and I’ve been around golf for a long time. It received the highest slope rating ever by the USGA (United States Golf Association) when they rated it. It’s just a really difficult golf course in every respect because it tests you from start to finish. There’s really no easy holes. If you play great, you can shoot a decent score, but it’s there to punish you if you mess up.
There’s been a lot of talk about where this year’s team ranks among the ones you’ve coached. Now that the season is over, where do you think it stacks up to the others?
Well, it’s right up there. I think those teams that made it to the final four finished a little better, but this is definitely one of my better teams. When you look at winning five times, finishing second at Pac-12’s, having a couple individual winners and we set the all time NCAA record for the lowest 18-hole round for a team ever (30-under at the Ka’anapali Classic). It’s been a special year and fortunately the core of this group returns.
For the players returning next year, what, if any, parting words or advice do you give them as they head into summer?
Everyone’s going in a million different directions. All these guys are accomplished players and they have opportunities to go play in tournaments.
The biggest thing I said is, regardless of what happened this week at nationals, we’re going to be a better team because of it. You can’t play that golf course under those stressful conditions without – you know, golf is easier after that. I think another big thing is for each guy to go back, stay in love with golf and keep working on it.
I do think we’ll be in a good position next year with those returning guys, but also hosting the NCAA Championships here in Eugene.
Looking towards next season, who are you looking at as frontrunners to replace Jonathan Woo in the playing rotation?
There’s going to be quite a few guys. We had three kids redshirt this year, and I think all three of them will be in the mix. Sulman Raza, Andrew Bonner, who transferred from Colorado, and Brandon Baumgarten – all those guys have done a lot of good things in the past. Certainly Nigel Lett has done some good. A couple of the freshman coming in could push those guys.
So I think we’ll have a pretty deep squad and there will be a lot of competition to play, which always makes everybody better.
And also next season, with Eugene hosting the NCAA Championships, it seems like a pretty important year for your team. If you guys make it that far, obviously you would have a pretty big home-course advantage. Have you thought about that much?
Oh yeah. Part of the reason we put the bid in is I thought I would have a good team and would love to showcase these guys. It’s going to be a long year, we’ve got to get better and we’ve got to get there.
We’re going to have more pressure on us than any team Oregon has ever had by virtue of hosting, so we’ll have to deal with that. But, it’s a great opportunity for these kids to grow and learn and get better. If we can make it, it would be fun to make a run at our home course. It’s a dream come true if we can do it.
Follow Will Denner on Twitter @Will_Denner