UO Men?s Golf Heads to Pac-10 Championships
EUGENE, Ore. ? The championship portion of the season gets underway Monday for the Oregon men’s golf team when the Pac-10 tournament tees off at the par 72, 7,412 yard Gallery at Dove Mountain in Tucson, Ariz. Live scoring for the three-day, four-round event will be available at www.golfstat.com.
"The Pac-10 is always one of the best conferences in the country and this year is no exception," said Oregon coach Steve Nosler. "UCLA might be the best team in the country, but you’ve got another four or five teams who are good enough to win it. We’d like to compete as hard as we can and then the score will take care of itself."
The Ducks will compete senior Mike Sica, sophomores Justin St. Clair (Springfield, Ore.), Gregg LaVoie and Kyle Johnson (North Bend, Ore.) and freshmen Matt Ma and Dustin Pewarchuk to the four-round event. Teams play a six-count-five format, instead of the traditional five-count-four. St. Clair has been Oregon’s most consistent golfer with a 72.9 season stroke average and three top 20 finishes this season. Sica is next on the team with a 73.8 average, with Johnson close behind (73.9).
The Ducks are in need of a strong finish to build their resume in their effort to earn a bid to the May 20-22 NCAA West Regional at Sunriver, Ore. "We probably need to finish fifth or so to get a couple of quality wins," said Nosler.
UCLA, the No. 3 team in the country in the latest Golfweek poll, is the defending champion and this year’s prohibitive favorite, but the Bruins will be pushed by No. 5 Arizona State, No. 8 Arizona, No. 12 USC, No. 18 California and No. 25 Washington.
The Ducks finished seventh at the 2003 championships in Glendale, Calif. LaVoie tied for 21st at 11-over 299.
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