Krafft Claims First Career Victory at Sahalee Players Championship

Sunday, September 8

Sahalee Country Club | Sammamish, WA

All Day

University of Oregon

Sahalee Players Championship

Photo by: Bill Phillips

Krafft Claims First Career Victory at Sahalee Players Championship

09/08/24 | Men's Golf

Results (PDF)

SAMMAMISH, Wash. – After carding birdies on No. 6 and No. 8 to get to 4-under par for the tournament, junior Aiden Krafft sank a clutch par putt on the par-3 ninth hole to earn his first collegiate individual title at the Sahalee Players Championship on Sunday. Krafft's 1-under performance in the final round was enough to jump Arizona State's Jose Luis Ballester and Preston Summerhays for his first medal as a Duck.

"Amazing couple of days for Aiden," head coach Casey Martin said. "He has been up early every morning working on his game, grinding away. I'm so happy he gets to enjoy the results of his hard work."

This marks the first Oregon individual victory since Nate Stember earned medalist honors at the Duck Invitational in 2023, and is the first season-opening individual title since Norman Xiong won at the 2017 Rod Myers Invitational, his first of six that season.

Led by Krafft's performance, Oregon finished the first tournament of the fall slate in a tie for sixth, climbing up four spots from Saturday. Arizona State claimed the team title at 7-under, 11 strokes ahead of second-place Florida.

How It Happened
Krafft started the day in a four-way tie for second, two shots behind Summerhays. Starting on the tenth hole, Krafft shot an even-par 36 in his first nine holes to gain a share of the lead after Summerhays carded three bogeys on the front. A Krafft bogey on the par-4 third sent him back into a tie for fourth, but the junior was not going to be stopped. He birdied the par-5 sixth after going birdie-eagle on the hole yesterday, then carded his third birdie of the round on the par-4 eighth to put himself atop the leaderboard at 1-under on the day, 4-under overall. He got the short par putt to drop on the final green to take home the trophy for the first time as a Duck.

The rest of the Oregon lineup also felt more comfortable on the course today as the Ducks posted a 2-under 286 in the final round, their low for the tournament. Greyson Leach climbed 15 spots up the leaderboard after he posted a flawless scorecard in the final round, tallying 16 pars and a pair of birdies for a 2-under 70 to finish tied for sixth at 1-under. Leach led the field with 41 pars for the tournament. Daniel Bullen also carded a 2-under 70 on Saturday. After a bogey on his second hole of the day, Bullen tallied four birdies and nine pars in his next 13 holes.

Jeffrey Kwak posted a 7-over 79 in the final round while Eric Doyle rounded out the Ducks lineup with his best 18 holes of the weekend, finishing with a 3-over 75. Jay Gould-Healy tied for 55th playing as an individual after a 6-over finish on Sunday. The junior played the back nine even but ran into trouble on the front.

Quotable
"We had a better day today," Martin said. "The course will humble you, so to have the guys battle through the adversity and have some success was nice. Greyson also played beautifully all weekend."

Duck Scorecard
Sahalee Players Championship
Sahalee Country Club – Par 72 (7,007 yards)
T6. Oregon 294-296-286 – 876
1. Aiden Krafft 71-70-71 – 212 (-4)
T6. Greyson Leach 71-74-70 – 215 (-3)
T55. Jeffrey Kwak 74-73-79 – 227 (+11)
T55. Jay Gould-Healy (I) 74-75-78 – 227 (+11)
T61. Daniel Bullen 81-78-70 – 229 (+13)
T66. Eric Doyle 78-78-75 – 231 (+15)

Notable
The Ducks posted the best finish of the three Big Ten teams in the field, beating Northwestern (+22) and host Washington (+41) … Jay Gould-Healy led the field at 4-under on par 3s … Greyson Leach led the tournament with 41 total pars while the Ducks finished second as a team with 173 … Aiden Krafft tied for the tournament lead in par-5 scoring average (4.33, -8) and was second with 12 birdies.

Next Up
Oregon will return to the Seattle area for the Husky Invitational on Sept. 24-25. The two-day event, hosted by Washington, will be held at Aldarra Golf Club. Aiden Krafft put together the best result of his sophomore campaign at the event last season, finishing T22 at 1-under.