Try finding on campus a group of students who had a better weekend than the Oregon club disc golf team — you probably won’t.
At the Collegiate Disc Golf Championships in Augusta, Ga., freshman Chris Becker finished 13 under par for the tournament to become this year’s individual national champion, leading the Ducks to a second-place finish behind hometown Augusta State in the team standings.
Meanwhile, the B team had greater success, winning the First Flight division of the tournament, and junior Jacob Rogers won the individual title.
Because of their performances this weekend, Becker and junior Cody Cornett, who finished ninth in the individual standings at 6 over par, earned All-America honors. In a field of approximately 100 players, Becker finished only two strokes ahead of Augusta State’s Jason Lynn to earn the top spot.
Entering the final round, Becker trailed Lynn by four strokes. With his focus on its highest level, Becker overcame that deficit by throwing a round of 54, six strokes better than Lynn’s final round total.
“The best way I’m going to do my best round is to just focus on my individual round,” Becker said. “If I keep thinking about how other people are doing, I think that messes me up more.”
“When you consider four rounds of singles, and two throws separated the winner? That’s crazy, I think,” Logan Robinson said.
To capture his individual title, Rogers outlasted teammate Derek Penfield in a sudden-death playoff that lasted two holes.
On the 18th hole, Rogers overcame a difficult uphill shot into the wind to force the playoff.
“I knew the line I wanted on the putt. I kind of just did my normal routine, closed my eyes, and it went in,” Rogers said.
“I made some plays during the final round that I shouldn’t have or should have done different,” Penfield said. “Just not playing the smartest golf.”
Coming into the final day of team play, the A team trailed Augusta State by 13 strokes, a deficit the team thought impossible to overcome, according to Becker. Instead, the team shifted its focus to taking second place over Western Illinois, whom the Ducks were tied with at the time.
The Ducks finished 15 strokes behind Augusta State and two ahead of Western Illinois.
The A team had trouble adjusting to the tournament’s doubles format. The Ducks usually had doubles partners alternating every throw. Instead, the tournament required partners to alternate who starts each hole, regardless of who finished the previous one. This format added a new element of strategy for the Ducks.
“You can’t really get a groove going,” Cornett said. “You got to play it out and figure out which person is going to play holes the best, which person is going to drive on the easy holes the best.”
The struggles in the early doubles rounds put the team in an undesirable position and damaged its expectations of winning. Cornett said the team figured out the best pairings among its four players. The problems had nothing to do with personalities, but rather not properly matching up skills.
“Me, Chris Becker, Nate Bush, Noah Politzer, we get along,” Cornett said. “We’re definitely good friends. We’re definitely buddies, and we all get along really well.”
During times of poor play, it helps that the Ducks have one of the top players in the world, Dave Feldberg, as their coach. His words to the A team after its disappointing opening rounds this weekend had a decisive effect on the Ducks and kept the team’s morale up.
“What he said was, ‘You can’t lose a tournament in the first day, and you can’t win it.’ That gave us a lot of confidence, and we knew we could come back and have time to do well,” Becker said.
“He’s stoked that we’re out there, we’re stoked that he’s out there,” Cornett said of Feldberg.
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