On the plane ride home from this weekend’s tournament in Palo Alto, Calif., the Oregon women’s golf team might as well have played some Citizen King over the speakers.
“I’ve seen better days,” the song “Better Days,” says. “And the bottom drops out.”
The bottom dropped out on the Ducks this weekend, as they finished 18th of 18 teams at the Stanford/Pepsi Intercollegiate in Palo Alto
The golfers were 16th after one round, but dropped to 18th after a second-round 321, the highest single-round score of the tournament until Washington State matched it on Sunday. Oregon followed its 321 performance with a 320 on Sunday, and couldn’t catch the Cougars, who finished six strokes ahead of the Ducks in 17th.
The 18th-place finish was the Ducks’ worst of the year. Oregon finished 19th at the rain-shortened NCAA Preview in September, but the field was 21 teams there.
Top-ranked Arizona won the tournament by six strokes over No. 3 Southern California, continuing its unbeaten streak in complete tournaments to an unprecedented 10 competitions. The Wildcats, last season’s NCAA Champions, beat out nine other top-25 teams to take the title at the Stanford-Pepsi.
Arizona also beat heavy competition from its Pacific-10 Conference foes. Besides USC, No. 5 Stanford finished third, Arizona State finished seventh, UCLA finished eighth and California finished 12th.
Tulsa’s Stacy Prammanasudh shot six under par through the tournament’s final two days to win the individual title at the Stanford/Pepsi, beating Arizona’s Lorena Ochoa by three strokes. Prammanasudh helped her team to a fourth-place finish. Arizona had three players — Ochoa, Natalie Gulbis and Cristina Baena — finish in the top 10, while USC had two.
Oregon’s next tournament is the Hawaii Fall Golf Classic in Oahu, Hawaii, October 31-November 1.