On May 20, the Oregon men’s golf team finished ninth of 13 teams at the NCAA Columbus Regional and failed to make the final cut to advance in the tournament. The Ducks finished with a total score of 41 over par, 10 strokes behind No. 25 Florida
State University, which secured the final qualification spot.

Oregon’s Ramil Saelim and Aiden Krafft led the team with scores of six over and nine over par, respectively. While the result certainly wasn’t what any team wanted in a regional tournament, the Ducks were the second best unranked team at the tournament behind the University of Memphis, which qualified for the NCAA Tournament with a third place finish.

Casper Nerpin finished just behind Krafft with a score of 10 over par, while the rest of the team fell behind. Tim Chang and Sebastian Desoisa bottomed out the scorecard for Oregon with final scores of 16 and 25 over par.

Looking back on this season, there were a lot of ups and downs with this group. To start the year, they finished dead last at the Sahalee Players Championship before another last-place finish at The Notah Begay III Match Play weeks later. The ups came shortly after when the Ducks secured a podium finish at the Cal Poly Invitational, finishing third overall with Desoisa taking home the individual trophy for his first-place finish. In February, Krafft finished first at The Prestige while the team had a respectable fourth-place finish.

A lot of big highs for individuals this season means the team has some talent to be proud of, especially freshman Desoisa, who will be a key member of the team next season with Krafft graduating. It’s important to note that Krafft will leave as one of the Ducks’ best players in the program’s history with a seventh-best all-time scoring average of 71.89. He was also an All-Big Ten second team member in his final two seasons at Oregon.

The team may be losing one of its best players, but just by looking at the roster, anyone can see just how stacked this program is with young talent. Desoisa headlines the freshman core alongside Oscar Lent, who has been a contributor this season. Saelim and Chang have been solid contributors as well in their sophomore season, with Saelim leading the charge alongside Krafft in the second half of the season.

It’s safe to say that head coach Casey Martin has a strong underclassmen core at his disposal heading into next year and should be one to watch when they kick off their fall season in early September.