The final round saw the No. 8 Oregon Ducks finish the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate at Long Cove Club on Hilton Head Island in last place. Despite shooting their best overall team score of the weekend at 287, the Ducks’ remained in their 17th of 17 placing in the tournament.
Going into the final round, Oregon sat in last place behind Ohio State by seven strokes. After Oregon had finished its round, Ohio State sat one stroke behind, but a very strong back nine from most of the Buckeyes’ competitors propelled them past the Ducks.
The only other Pac-12 team competing, No. 22 Arizona State, went on to win the tournament, shooting three-over for the competition, one stroke ahead of No. 14 Northwestern — which placed second.
Kiara Romero, not surprisingly, had the Ducks’ best score of the day and the only sub-70 score of the weekend for Oregon in this tournament.
Romero started her final round with a bogey, then a birdie and pars on the rest of the front nine. On the back nine, she parred every hole aside from two-straight birdies on her 11th and 12th holes of the day.
The freshman phenom improved mightily as the tournament went on, and shot her best round in the final round. Romero managed a two-under (69) and finished the competition tied for 16th with a one-over total score.
Oregon’s other freshman, Ting-Hsuan Huang, evened out her round on Wednesday by shooting two bogeys and one birdie on both the front and back nines. Huang was positioned well after the first round, but her scores in the last two rounds were subpar, and couldn’t keep her in the top-25.
Huang shot a two-over (73) to bring her total to four-over and a tie for 33rd place.
Minori Nagano had her best round of the competition by six strokes, and was the only other Duck that shot under par on Wednesday.
Nagano shot an early bogey, which, given the past two days’ performance, suggested that she was in for another well-over-par round. However, Nagano responded with two more birdies on the front nine.
On the back nine, Nagano parred every hole and remained consistent, which brought her to a one-under (70) and 11-over for her total. She finished tied for 66th place of 89 golfers.
Anika Varma continued her uninspired first start of the spring season with her final round that included nine holes that went over par.
Varma shot eight bogeys and one double-bogey, while also managing two birdies for an eight-over (79), her second such score in as many days. She finished the tournament with a total score of 21-over, which sank her to tie for 82nd.
Ching-Tzu Chen showed promise of a positive round at times as she shot three birdies and three bogeys on Wednesday. However, what doomed her round was another disaster hole.
On a 509-yard par-5, Chen shot a nine (+4) for a quadruple-bogey and four-over was where she finished her round. Her score of 75 was Chen’s best round of the competition, which demonstrates how much she struggled in South Carolina.
Final Scorecard: Final round score (Par), Weekend total (Par), Place in rankings
Romero: 69 (-2), 214 (+1), T-16th
Huang: 73 (+2), 217 (+4), T-33rd
Nagano: 70 (-1), 224 (+11), T-66th
Varma: 79 (+8), 234 (+21), T-82nd
Chen: 75 (+4), 239 (+26), 87th
Oregon: 287 (+3), 885 (+33), 17th out of 17 teams
While finishing in last out of 17 teams, Oregon still has some positives to take from the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate.
Romero showed real character on Hilton Head these past three days after starting the tournament with one of her worst rounds of her young Oregon career. On Monday, Romero shot a three-over (74), but in the next two days she combined for a score of two-under.
Romero’s ability to bounce back is what propelled her 15 spots up the leaderboard to a tie for 16th in the final round. Securing a top-25 finish should be a baseline goal for Romero as the season goes on, and it is especially welcoming to see her achieve that even after her rough start.
If she, or the Ducks, are to continue the success they had in the first tournament and the fall, they need to figure out ways to rebound collectively.
Both Romero and Nagano had their best rounds on Wednesday after considerable drop-offs from their normal level of play, but it was clear their recoveries didn’t rub off on their teammates.
Huang, Oregon’s other freshman, shot one-under on Monday, so it looked like she would be able to put together a spectacular outing in South Carolina. However, she couldn’t produce in that quantity all three days and failed to go under par again in the competition.
Varma and Chen simply had tournaments to forget, and it is entirely possible that either or both of them get replaced in the starting lineup in Oregon’s next tournament later this month.
What seemed to doom Oregon in this tournament was its failure to convert on easy holes. The Ducks were the worst team in the tournament when it came to par-3’s, with a score of 16-over total for the course’s shortest holes.
This could have been made much worse if not for Romero — whose combined score of two-under on par-3’s tied for third best out of the 89 golfers.
Oregon needs to find a way to make competitions easier as a team, and one glaring way to do that is to convert on the (theoretically) easiest holes.
This was simply not the Ducks’ best competition as a team, even though some positives could be taken from the overarching negative that is finishing last in a 17-team competition.
It is made even worse that Pac-12 rival Arizona State won the tournament, and Oregon’s next competition is a Pac-12-heavy field at the Arizona State Invitational. The Sun Devils proved this week they are among the nation’s most talented squads, and are far ahead of Oregon’s current level of play.
The Darius Rucker Intercollegiate was a rude awakening for the Ducks, who took a major drop-off from their incredible third-place finish at the San Diego State Classic – which Romero won.
Oregon, as a team, needs to collectively improve mightily if it is to compete later this month at the Ping/Arizona State Invitational at Papago Golf Course in Phoenix, AZ from March 28-30.
