For the Oregon men’s golf team, the 2003-2004 season was full of disappointing finishes, moments of brilliance and the promise of better things to come.
With only two seniors on the roster — the rest being redshirt freshmen and sophomores who had less than a year of tournament experience — it could have been said that this season was one for rebuilding.
“We were an extremely young team,” Oregon head coach Steve Nosler said. “We didn’t have the hard-core upperclassmen that we have had in the past.”
And indeed, the Ducks struggled because of it. Oregon was never able to string together solid events in order to build any kind of
momentum. Only once were they able to
record back-to-back top-10 finishes.
The season result was four top-10 finishes in 11 events, with the Ducks finishing in the top five twice — the Northwest Collegiate Classic, which included senior Jimmy White’s school-record 63, in the fall and the Duck Invitational this spring — culminating in a seventh place finish at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships.
The Ducks were denied their fifth-straight NCAA West Regional bid, finishing the year with a focus on the future.
“To make something positive out of the negative, I hope it is a bittersweet incentive that they didn’t make it,” Nosler said. “I don’t think that regionals would of helped us. I think that the experience they got will make them better players next year.”
Much of the hype that followed the Ducks into the spring season was not necessarily about what would happen on the course, but who had been signed off of it. A Southern California duo, Derek Sipe and Joey Benedetti, will be expected to join the team and contribute immediately.
“I’ve seen them both play and they are both really good golfers,” Nosler said. “They both have chance to come here and play right away.”
Sipe, a senior at Esperanza High School in Anaheim, Calif., has 25 tournament wins on the Southern California PGA Junior Tour, along with being the 2003 California boys state amateur tournament runner-up. He is ranked third among junior players in the state of California and No. 9 nationally according to the National Junior Golf Scoreboard.
“Derek has a very impressive résumé and understands how to win a tournament,” Nosler said.
Benedetti, who competes against Sipe in the Sunset League, is a three-time all-league first team member and helped lead Huntington Beach Union High School to the 2003 CIF state championship by finishing fifth individually.
“Joey doesn’t have quite the tournament experience, but I think that he has a chance to be just as good,” Nosler said. “I’m really excited because I think the two of them together should provide a solid base for our team for the next several years.”
Nosler — who attended the OSAA 4A State Boys Championship last week in Corvallis — said he wouldn’t trade Sipe or Benedetti for any of the high school prospects in the field.
“All the guys here (at Oregon) will have to play well next year to be ahead of these two coming in,” Nosler said.