No. 12 Oregon women’s golf dropped four spots on the leaderboard and is now tied for 10th with No. 6 USC at the PING/ASU Invitational at Papago Golf Course in Phoenix, AZ.
Oregon placed in sixth after day one, but fell behind due to the successful rounds from the competition and a lack of birdies from the Ducks.
Even after dropping from sixth place, the Ducks are still nine strokes behind the leaders No. 4 UCLA and No. 11 Northwestern.
Oregon has been led by Minori Nagano in Phoenix, whose sub-70 performance on Thursday thrust her to tied for fifth place entering the second round.
Nagano’s second outing of the invitational started out very rocky, as she bogeyed her first two holes. Fortunately, she was able to secure two birdies by the end of the front nine in order to bring her score back to even at the turn.
Two birdies and a bogey on the back nine is all she needed to secure her spot in the top-five going into the final round.
Nagano finished with a one-under (71), and she is currently tied for fifth, three strokes off leader Ellie Bushnell of Oklahoma State.
Anika Varma played great golf on Thursday in her even (72) outing, but she couldn’t capture the same magic on Friday, as her two early double-bogeys were too much to overcome.
Varma shot two-under after those major mistakes, which salvaged what could have been a disaster round. She finished with a two-over (74), which tied her at 38th place, 10 places back from where she placed after the first round.
In round one, Ching-Tzu Chen showed flashes of her talent, but mistakes in key moments caused her score to reflect the opposite.
Chen was much more fortunate in her second outing, as her two birdies and two bogeys were good for an even (72) score. She is tied with teammate Varma in 38th, which is a 13-place climb from where she was Thursday.
Ashleigh Park had a lot of momentum going into the second round after she ended her opening day with an eagle to bring her from an above-par score to a below one. She failed to replicate that energy in her second outing in Phoenix.
Park scored five-over on her front nine, which included three bogeys, a triple-bogey and a birdie. Her misfortune bled into the back nine where she shot one bogey and one double-bogey, but two more birdies mitigated what could have been a disastrous day for Park.
Park finished the day with a six-over (78) and is tied for 63rd place.
Oregon’s weak link this tournament has been Ting-Hsuan Huang, who has had an extremely hard time getting any rhythm together in Phoenix.
Huang shot five bogeys and two birdies in an uneventful, three-over (75), which is one stroke better than her score in the first round. She is tied for 75th place, the lowest out of the Ducks’ lineup.
Even in such a competitive field, the Ducks need to find a way to get themselves into the top half of the 17-team competition.
Going into the final round, it will be important to get solid outings from Nagano, Varma and hopefully one of the others.
Without its best golfer Kiara Romero, who is preparing for the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, it is a welcome sight to see Oregon performing at a high level. It will need to continue that momentum if Oregon is to see top half success in Phoenix.
Nagano is only three strokes away from the top of the leaderboard, which is striking distance for the last day of golf in Phoenix. If she is to make a run for the individual medal, Nagano will need a tremendous outing on Saturday.
Although they didn’t make a major climb, the Ducks are still in contention to make major shifts in the rankings in the final round.
Scorecard: Second Round (Par), Total (Par), Place in rankings
Nagano: 71 (-1), 140 (-4), T-5th
Varma: 74 (+2), 146 (+2), T-38th
Chen: 72 (E), 146 (+2), T-38th
Park: 78 (+6), 149 (+5), T-63rd
Huang: 75 (+3), 151 (+7), T-75th
Oregon: 292 (+4), 578 (+2), T-10th out of 17 teams
