University of Oregon
NCAA Championships
Frosh Pace No. 31 Ducks in NCAA Golf Opener
05/26/09 | Men's Golf
* Complete first-round results are available in PDF format via the LINKS box to the right, and a photo gallery is available by clicking the camera icon above.
TOLEDO, Ohio ? The No. 31 University of Oregon men's golf team stood tied for 25th place in the first day of the 112th NCAA Men's Golf Championships held Tuesday at the Inverness Golf Club.
Seeded 18th in the 30-team field thanks to their recent runner-up Pac-10 and regional finishes, the Ducks shot a 22-over 306 score by its five-person team composed of four freshmen and one sophomore.
On the par 71, 7,255-yard course, UO freshmen Eugene Wong and Daniel Miernicki led the way and were tied for 56th overall with their 4-over 75. Other Duck entries included freshman Andrew Vijarro and Robbie Ziegler who were tied for 117th (78) and sophomore Isaiah Telles (139th-t, 80).
Glancing at the Duck leaders' scorecards, Wong opened with a par on the first hole, and overcame bogeys on the par-4 second and fourth holes and a double-bogey on the par-3 third hole to shoot par the rest of the way ? a stretch that included a birdie on the par-5 eighth hole and a final bogey on the par-4 17th hole.
“My putting was better and has been coming around lately,” Wong said. “The course played fairly tough. The third hole was the toughest for me with water on the right and a bunker on the left and I pushed it into the water ? it's one of the more intimidating holes I've ever played.”
Miernicki opened with a bogey and birdie on first two holes, and after a par on the third hole, carded double-bogeys on the fourth and seventh holes and another bogey on the fifth hole. On the final 11 holes he responded with 10 par scores and a birdie on the par-4 16th hole.
“You have to hit to be able to hit it straight on this course,” Miernicki said, “and I didn't early and had bad tee shots on the fourth, fifth and seventh holes. Early on Coach (Casey Martin) was trying to refocus me by asking if I was having fun yet, and I said ?Not yet'. Overall, my putting was decent but not great. (As far as his best shots) I was able to save a bogey on the first hole, which was a minor victory when I hit it 30 yards over the green on my approach shot.”
The Santee, Calif., native entered the tourney on a run of six straight par or better rounds and nine of his last 10 rounds overall that helped him tie for third overall in the Pac-10 Championships in late April. Wong led UO in the West Regional two weeks ago and tied for fifth overall.
Regularly updated hole-by-hole results for each round are located at the www.GolfStat.com website at the http://www.golfstatresults.com/public/leaderboards/team/static/team_players_1495.html URL address.
Tuesday marked the beginning of Oregon's first back-to-back appearance in the NCAA Championships since 1998-99, and 23rd overall in school history since its first trip in 1947 when it placed 17th. In that span, UO enjoyed top-10 finishes in 1977 (seventh) and ?76 (10th).
“We didn't play as well as I had hoped, especially when the rain didn't make it any easier on one of the toughest front nine's you'll see in the country,” Oregon head coach Casey Martin said. “But we can't blame it on the conditions because we made some obvious mistakes and put ourselves in a lot of tough situations. Afterwards we battled back and finished with respectable efforts on the back nine. Part of our start was probably partly due to our freshmen being a little nervous - Eugene was four-over after four and Daniel was five-over after seven - so for them to come back was important. I was also happy how Robbie responded when it was going the wrong way and turned it around quickly.”
On the team leaderboard, No. 1 Oklahoma State stood tied for the lead with a four-over 288 with No. 2 Georgia, four strokes ahead of No. 27 Tennessee-Chattanooga (third, 292). No. 4 Washington and No. 63 San Diego followed in a tie for fourth place (294), ahead of No. 13 Arizona State, No. 48 Ohio State and No. 20 Tennessee (sixth-tie, 294).
Other Pac-10 teams in the field included No. 3 USC (22nd-tie, 305), No. 5 Stanford (22nd-tie, 305), No. 15 UCLA (25th-t, 306) and No. 34 Arizona (29th-t, 310), and complete team results follow at the bottom of this release.
Overall individually, the trio of Jonathan Bowers of Northwestern, Scott Langley of Illinois and Matt Hill of N.C. State were tied for the lead with their two-under 69 scores, while five others were tied for fourth at 70.
Looking ahead, UO resumes action Wednesday in second round action and tees off at 12:12 p.m. ET (9:12 p.m. Pacific Time), while Thursday's third round tee time will be based on the final team results after Wednesday's round.
More information on the NCAA Championships is available at the www.NCAAsports.com and host www.UTrockets.com websites.
FIRST ROUND RESULTS
112th Annual NCAA Men's Golf Championships
Inverness Golf Club (Host: Toledo)
Toledo, Ohio
Par 71, 7,255 yards
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Team Results ? 1t, Oklahoma State, 288. 1t, Georgia, 288. 3, UT Chattanooga, 292. 4t, Washington, 293. 4t, San Diego, 293. 6t, Arizona State, 294. 6t, Ohio State, 294. 6t, Tennessee, 294. 9, Michigan, 296. 10t, Arkansas, 297. 10t, Duke, 297. 12t, Texas A&M, 298. 12t, Northwestern, 298. 12t, Alabama, 298. 15t, Illinois, 299. 15t, TCU, 299. 17, Central Florida, 300. 18t, Georgia Tech, 301. 18t, Iowa, 301. 20, Wake Forest, 302. 21, Texas Tech, 303. 22t, USC, 305. 22t, Stanford, 305. 22t, South Carolina, 305. 25t, Oregon, 306. 25t, Virginia, 306. 25t, UCLA, 306. 28, Texas, 308. 29t, Florida, 310. 29t, Arizona, 310.
Top Individual Results ? 1t, Jonathan Bowers, Northwestern, 69. 1t, Scott Langley, Illinois, 69. 1t, Mat Hill, N.C. State, 69. 4t, Alex Ching, San Diego, 70. 4t, Tom Hoge, TCU, 70. 4t, Phillip Francis, UCLA, 70. 4t, David Holmes, Tennessee, 70. 4t, Nick Taylor, Washington, 70. 9t, 7 tied at 71.
Oregon Individual Results ? 56t, Eugene Wong, 75. 56t, Daniel Miernicki, 75. 117t, Andrew Vijarro, 78. 117t, Robbie Ziegler, 78. 139t, Isaiah Telles, 80.
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Players Mentioned
