The Oregon men’s golf team tees off today in the first round of the NCAA West Regional in Palo Alto, Calif. The stakes are high for the No. 21-seeded Ducks as they and 26 other squads will compete at the par-71 Stanford Golf Course for bids to the NCAA Championships in June. The top 10 finishing teams will be awarded spots.
The Ducks are primed for a strong showing at the Regional and should have a good shot at qualifying for the Championships if they play as successfully as they have been playing.
Oregon has been one of the hottest teams in the Pacific-10 Conference this spring, finishing no worse than seventh in five straight tournaments. So far, the highlight this season for the Ducks has been their first-place finish in March at the rain-
shortened Western Invitational.
Following their fifth-place
finish at the Pac-10 Championships in April, Oregon head coach Steve Nosler credited the Ducks’ turnaround in spring
to his players’ attitudes on the golf course.
“The boys have a very competitive nature,” Nosler said. “They play hard, and they never settle for anything.”
Leading the Ducks into the three-round tournament will likely be the same five golfers that Nosler has used nearly all this season: sophomores Matt Ma
and Jay Snyder, and juniors
Gregg LaVoie, Justin St. Clair
and Chris Dukeminier.
Ma has found his way into the number one spot on Oregon’s roster thanks to his recent top-15 finishes in the last five tournaments. Ma currently leads the team with an average score of 72.6. Should the Ducks’ season come to an end at the Regional, Ma may very well grab one of the two invites to the Championships awarded to the top two golfers playing from non-qualifying teams.
LaVoie is the lone Duck who has previous experience in Regional play. LaVoie was a part of Oregon’s 2003 squad that advanced to the NCAA Championships. The Ducks failed to reach a Regional last year, ending an eight-year streak of qualifying.
Oregon is paired with No. 19 Cal Poly and No. 20 Fresno State for
the first two rounds of the Regional. Saturday’s round three will pit
the Ducks against different teams
following a re-seeding after the
second round.
The field competing in the West Regional includes eight teams from the Pac-10 and 14 others ranked among the nation’s top 50. Ten teams took home conference titles this year.
The toast of all conferences this year has been the Mountain West, which is sending UNLV and conference champ New Mexico as the
No. 1 and 2 seeds, respectively. Arizona State is seeded fourth in the field as the highest seeded team from the Pac-10. No. 10 Washington, the team that took home the Pac-10 title this year, is seeded a surprising six spots behind the Sun Devils and one behind Southern California, who finished seventh at the Pac-10 finals.
The Regional marks the second tournament played at the Stanford Golf Course for the Ducks this season. In mid-April, Oregon shot an 878 in Palo Alto to finish tied for seventh at the U.S. Intercollegiate. While there, Ma recorded his best collegiate finish, tying for second at one-under 209.