Golfers Tie For Second At Wyoming Cowboy Classic

Tuesday, April 8

Scottsdale, AZ

All Day

Colorado

Round Three

Photo by: CUBuffs.com

April 08, 2014 | Men's Golf

By: David Plati, Associate AD/Sports Information

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The University of Colorado men's golf team overcame some minor adversity here Tuesday and tied for second in the Wyoming Cowboy Classic, its final major tournament ahead of the Pac-12 Championships later this month.

No. 11 Oklahoma pulled away over the final nine holes and claimed the team title with a 9-under par 831 team score, besting the No. 52 Buffaloes and No. 39 Brigham Young, who both tied for second with 2-under 838 scores. The Sooners had entered the final round with a one stroke lead over the Buffs and Cougars as the three jostled for the top position throughout the day. Utah (849) and UC-Davis (857) rounded out the top five.

Colorado played the final round at a disadvantage, as freshman Andrew Bonner was unable to play meaning the Buffs played with just four golfers to score for as many spots. Bonner had withdrawn from Monday's second round with three holes remaining with a back injury; he opened with a 1-over 71 in the morning but suffered the injury early on in the afternoon as his play slowly deteriorated. He didn't even attempt to warm up Tuesday will be examined by CU's sports medicine personnel once he returns to campus.

Playing a man down, the Buffaloes still aimed for the win but were satisfied with the runner-up finish.

“We're definitely pleased with that fact, for sure,” CU head coach Roy Edwards said. “We didn't attack things any differently, we gathered the guys ahead of time and we were still focused on winning. We didn't change what we were trying to do, we still wanted to be aggressive but talked about being smart when it came to risks. We had a chance to win and we played well, but we just came up a little bit short. We still finished second and we're pleased with that.

“Oklahoma has a really good team and they just pulled away. We were right there with them for a while and in the end, we can come away with more and more confidence.”

Junior David Oraee posted his top collegiate finish, tying for second with a 5-under par 205 effort, also his best 54-hole score; it was his first top five performance though his seventh top 10 finish. He wrapped things up with a 2-under 68 Tuesday, scoring four birdies and 12 pars against two birdies. He was second in par-4 scoring for the tournament, playing the 36 of those at 3-under on the 7,133-yard, par-70 Talking Stick Golf Club's North Course layout. He also played the par-5 holes the seventh best (3-under), tied for the fifth-most birdies (11) and 16th-most pars (37) in the 115-man field.

“I putted really well,” Oraee said. “I wouldn't say I hit the ball really well, or as good as I should have. I just hit the ball toward the middle of the green and let my putting really save me. When I missed the greens, it was tough to hit to tap-in distance – but always to five or seven feet and I always seemed to make those – and I was steady getting down in two putts from the longer distances.” Oraee opened the meet with a 4-under 66, his collegiate career low gross score.

Oraee noted that there was a little more pressure playing minus a scorer, but that it actually served the team well.

“Going into a round, we're all normally trying to shoot a course record every time,” he said. “But being a man down, you have to be a little more guarded and be sure nobody has an off round because we would have to count that score. So it was a bump in the road in our quest to win the tournament. We have a pretty young team, so we're getting more and more experience and under the circumstances today, the experience was both rare and invaluable.”

Sophomore Philip Juel-Berg tied for eighth as he fashioned an even par 70 Tuesday to finish with a 3-under 207, closing with three birdies and 13 pars with just two bogeys. He birdied No. 18, his final hole of the day in the shotgun format that enabled the Buffaloes to catch BYU and tie the Cougars for second. He had 10 birdies and 37 pars for the tourney, 14th- and 16th-most in the field for the meet.

Freshman Ethan Freeman played as individual here; since he started the tournament as an extra player, he was not allowed to fill Bonner's spot once he withdrew due to injury after the meet began. He turned in the finest performance of his young collegiate career, tying for 10th as he closed things out with a 1-over 71 for a 2-under 208 total, which included an opening round 65 that matched the low gross score for 18 holes by a freshman in school history. He had two birdies (in the first three holes) and 13 pars Tuesday, with nine birdies and 38 pars overall (the latter the 11th most in the field), while just scoring seven holes worse than par, all single bogeys.

Freeman's 2-under 208 was also a school freshmen 54-hole tournament best, topping the 1-under 209 that Rick Cramer turned in at the 1979 Oklahoma City All-College Golf Classic. Freeman also posted the best score of the 10 players here competing as individuals who were not designated as scorers for their teams, winning that side competition by eight strokes.

“He played solid, he putted well and he's a good player so his performance here didn't surprise me,” Edwards said. “He had a great opportunity here and he took advantage of it.”

Oraee, Juel-Berg and Freeman all had no holes worse than bogey during the tournament; Oraee and Juel-Berg just six bogeys and Freeman seven.

Freshman Yannik Paul tied for 15th after recording CU's best final round score, a 3-under 67, to close with a 1-over 211; that enabled the Buffaloes to be the only school with three scorers in the top 15 (four including Freeman, which gave the Buffs three in the top 10). Paul had four birdies and 13 pars against just one bogey in his final round, and he played the par-5 holes the fifth-best for the meet at 5-under.

Freshman Jeremy Paul, the older of the two identical twins, finished up with a 2-over 72 for a 5-over 215 total, which tied him for 32nd. He opened and closed his round with double bogeys (on Nos. 2 and 1), only his 13th and 14th doubles in 540 holes this year; in-between, he played Talking Stick at 4-under. He did match Oraee for the team-lead in birdies here with 11, again the fifth-most in the field.

Oklahoma's Michael Gellerman finished up with a 2-under 68 for a 6-under 204 to edge Oraee and BYU's Cole Ogden by one shot for medalist honors. Gellerman and Ogden actually bogeyed No. 18 while Oraee pulled to within one of the lead after birdying No. 17 but made par to finish his round.

Colorado has one tune-up ahead of the Pac-12's, a dual match against Texas A & M in Hutchinson, Kan., on April 20, a week before the Pac-12 meet in Tucson which is April 25-27.

“We're getting better each time we're out there,” Edwards added. “David really played well this week. He had been a little bit frustrated as he just hadn't been scoring despite playing well for the most part. Jeremy was a little off and the other guys stepped up, and that's what Jeremy's done when the other guys were a little off. What it does is show how deep we really are and that's especially promising at this point of the season.”

NOTES: The Buffaloes posted their seventh top five finish for the 2013-14 season (actually all in the top four), tying the school record accomplished in four other seasons: 1980-81, 1999-2000, 2003-04 and 2008-09 ... Colorado improved to 113-39-7 against Division I competition this season, including a 65-20-2 mark for the spring portion of the schedule, an important factor in qualifying for the NCAA Championships ... CU's fourth-man scoring average here was 72.7; for the year, the Buffs' fourth-man number is 74.7 and their fifth-man norm is 77.5, both a full-stroke below the averages from CU's NCAA regional team in 2012-13 (75.6 and 78.5) ... Jeremy Paul had subpar round here, giving him 17 for the season; that's one shy of the school mark of 18, set by Kane Webber in 2003-04 and Patrick Grady in 2008-09 ... Paul lowered his team-leading stroke average to 72.03 here; three regulars now have sub-73 averages and a fourth is at 73 on the nose.

BUFFALO INDIVIDUALS

T2.	David Oraee	66-71-68—205
T8.	Philip Juel-Berg	68-69-70—207
T10.	*Ethan Freeman	65-72-71—208
T15.	Yannik Paul	70-74-67—211
T32.	Jeremy Paul	67-76-72—215
114.	Andrew Bonner	71-WD

*—competed individually.

INDIVIDUAL LEADERS

1.	Michael Gellerman, Oklahoma	66-70-68—204
T2.	David Oraee, Colorado	66-71-68—205
T2.	Cole Ogden, BYU	71-67-67—205
T4.	Pete Fernandez, UC-Irvine	67-69-70—206
T4.	Daniel Wood, Kansas State	72-67-67—206
T4.	Charlie Saxon, Oklahoma	69-71-66—206
T4.	Seokwon Jeon, Utah State	71-72-63—206

TEAM STANDINGS

1.	Oklahoma	275-285-271—831
T2.	COLORADO	271-290-277—838
T2.	Brigham Young	282-279-277—838
4.	Utah	282-280-287—849
5.	UC-Davis	283-288-286—857
6.	Kansas State	288-285-285—858
7.	UC-Irvine	287-286-286—859
T8.	Gonzaga	279-286-295—860
T8.	Texas-San Antonio	288-288-284—860
T8.	Santa Clara	284-288-288—860
11.	Utah State	290-302-274—866
12.	Idaho	284-299-284—867
13.	UC-Santa Barbara	283-290-299—872
14.	UC-Riverside	286-295-294—875
T15.	Old Dominion	295-298-283—876
T15.	Wyoming	289-296-291—876
17.	Air Force	292-302-283—877
18.	Texas-El Paso	292-300-286—878
19.	Southern Utah	283-303-295—881
20.	Weber State	294-303-298—895
21.	Texas Pan-American	302-304-296—902