Golfers Come Up Short At Regional; Oraee Advances

Saturday, May 16

The Sagamore Club: Noblesville, Ind.

All Day

Colorado

NCAA Central Regional

Photo by: Brian Drumm

May 16, 2015 | Men's Golf

By: David Plati, Associate AD/Sports Information

NOBLESVILLE, Ind. — The University of Colorado men's golf team had a disappointing end to its season here Saturday, as the Buffaloes dropped into a sixth place finish in the NCAA Central/Noblesville Regional, and in the process, just missed advancing to the NCAA Championship Finals later this month.

No. 1 Illinois and No. 28 SMU tied for the top spot with 4-under par 860 team scores, while No. 33 UNLV used the day's best round, a 10-under 278, to move up from fifth to third with a 1-under 863. No. 15 UCLA held on to fourth place (869), with Pac-12 rival and No. 8 Oregon the school that really displaced the Buffaloes in the top five, moving from sixth to fifth with an 871 total.

Colorado, ranked No. 48 (Golfweek; No. 52 GolfStat), finished with a 15-over 879 score and in a disappointing sixth place, especially since the Buffs led after the first round with what would be the regional's best round, an 11-under 277. The Buffs were still in second heading into Saturday, with a 13-stroke cushion between them and the dreaded sixth position – only the top five teams would advance to the NCAA Finals.

The bright spot for the Buffaloes is that senior David Oraee, who was in second place entering the final round and held that position, qualified as an individual for the NCAA Finals. He carded a 1-under par 71 in the final round for a 7-under 209 to fill the one slot available for a player to advance who was not a member of the five qualifying teams. He matched the second place finish by Bobby Kalinowski in the 1994 Central Regional in Oklahoma City as the best by a Buff in the regional play.

Oraee's berth marks the 15th time a CU player will play as an individual in the NCAA Championship Finals, last accomplished by Derek Tolan when he was a junior in 2008. Legendary Buff Hale Irwin won playing as a single without any teammates in 1967.

It became a battle for the final spot between the Buffs and Ducks by the time the teams completed the front nine; the Buffs had slipped into fifth and Oregon had made up five of the 13 shots it trailed CU by entering the round. The Ducks' four scorers then proceeded to play the last seven holes at 8-under par, while CU's quartet couldn't match it, playing those at 2-over. That 10-stroke swing determined the Buffs' fate.

“Everybody's just very disappointed, obviously we had a tough day,” CU head coach Roy Edwards said. “We didn't play the par-5s as well as we could have, which is usually one of our strong suits. From a stroke standpoint, that's where we lost a few. Down the stretch, we then had a couple of double bogeys on No. 17, which is a really tough hole, but then couldn't capitalize on No. 18 (a par-5). There's just nothing more to say other than we're all pretty devastated right now.”

CU's scorers were even on the par-5s Saturday after playing them 16-under the first two rounds; Oregon's four played them at 6-under in the final round.

Oraee was 4-under at the turn but ran into trouble opening the back nine, scoring his only double bogey of the tournament on No. 10 and then bogeyed 11; he finished up with seven straight pars en route to his 71. He had an eagle, 11 birdies and 37 pars, the latter the second-most in the field, with just four bogeys and the one double in playing one of the finest tournaments of his career on the 7,173-yard, par-72 Sagamore Club course layout. He was second only to Illinois' Brian Campbell, who shot a course record 65 in the final round 65 to finish with a 10-under 206 score.

“David played a tremendous tournament,” Edwards said. “I am very excited for him. But he's disappointed as well, and he'll be eventually be excited to go on to the finals. But he's a good teammate and isn't celebrating that right now – he'd much rather have them go with him.”

Oraee tied for the lead in the par-3 scoring (even) and tied for second on the par-5s (8-under); he thus played the par-4s at 1-over, which was tied for 16th best in recording CU's third top five individual effort in a regional.

Sophomore Yannik Paul tied for 21st, closing with a 75 for a 4-over 220; he had four birdies and nine pars against three bogeys and two doubles to wrap things up. He had 13 birdies overall, tied for the sixth-most in the field, and also played the 30 par-4 holes here at just 1-over.

Sophomore Jeremy Paul, who came into the regional as CU's leader in stroke average (71.7), ended his season with his high score of the year, an 8-over 80, which gave him a 9-over 225 overall, tying him for 39th place. He opened with a bogey and a double and didn't score his first birdie until the 12th hole, uncharacteristic for him as he is the team and one of the national leaders in birdies. He had 12 this week, but just 27 pars with 15 holes of bogey or worse, also rare for him in his two years with the Buffs.

Junior Philip Juel-Berg finished up with a 4-over 76 for a 9-over 225 total, which also tied him for 39th. He had three birdies, all of which followed bogeys (of which he had seven in all) and eight pars. He had 10 birdies overall in the meet. He has now played nine rounds in NCAA regional golf, with all his rounds between 71 and 78 and finishes between 30th and 39th.

Junior Drew Trujillo never got untracked this week. He became CU's No. 5 man after replacing sophomore Ethan Freeman, who fell ill, late Monday on the travel squad. Trujillo closed with an 86 and finished in 74th place with a 44-over par 260. He did have two birdies on Saturday, his only two of the tournament, and as it goes in golf, they came on the second (No. 15) and fifth (No. 6) toughest par-4 holes overall in the tournament. He had 12 holes worse than bogey which accounted for 31of his strokes over par.

“We had a really nice season overall,” Edwards said. “We had a lot of really good moments. We were in position to make it a really great season but just couldn't do it, and some of our inconsistency caught up to us at the end. But I'm proud of the effort the team gave all year and we just have to come back and keep working hard to improve and take it to that next level next year.”

PAC-12 UPDATE: Six of the eight Pac-12 schools that qualified for the regionals advanced to the finals: in addition to UCLA and Oregon out of the Central Region, USC and Washington made it from the West, Arizona State out of the Southwest, and Stanford out of the Southeast; Cal finish seventh in Lubbock in the South Central region. The Pac-12 and SEC each advanced six to the finals, the ACC five and the Big 12 four.

NOTES: Two-time defending NCAA champion Alabama finished seventh, thus the Crimson Tide's run is over and there will be a new titlist in 2015 … Colorado is still looking to advance to the NCAA Finals for the first time since the 2001-02 season, but is knocking on the door, as the sixth place finish was its third-best ever in regional play and marked the closest CU has come to making it in the eight times since last doing so … Oraee's performance in the NCAA Finals will be added in the statistics, but at present, the Buffs are in position to set the school mark for season stroke average (73.44; the record of 73.76 was set last year), and Jeremy Paul has a one-shot edge on Oraee for the team lead in stroke average: Paul is at 72.00 and Oraee 72.03, as the pair is separated by just one shot over 35 rounds. Yannik Paul is third at 72.23, and this will mark the first time in school history three players will average under 73 … Oraee, incidentally, has gone 1,529 holes since his last score worse than a double bogey; his last was actually the only quadruple bogey of his collegiate career, which he scored to open the final round at the UCI Anteater Invitational in March 2013 … Only 19 rounds out of 222 overall were scored in the 60s here, though the irony of the competitive course record was set first Friday by Virginia Tech's Scott Vincent with a 66, and then topped by Illinois' Campbell in the final round … The average score in the field for the tournament was 75.17, with Saturday's average of 74.20 the lowest of the three rounds ... The NCAA Finals are scheduled for May 29-June 3 in Bradenton, Fla.; the first three days are stroke play, when Oraee will compete.

BUFFALO INDIVIDUALS

2.	David Oraee	68-70-71—209
T21.	Yannik Paul	70-75-75—220
T39.	Jeremy Paul	68-77-80—225
T39.	Philip Juel-Berg	71-78-76—225
74.	Drew Trujillo	85-89-86—260

INDIVIDUAL LEADERS

1.	Brian Campbell, Illinois	69-72-65—206
2.	David Oraee, Colorado	68-70-71—209
3.	Jonathan Garrick, UCLA	69-68-73—210
4.	Scott Vincent, Virginia Tech	77-66-68—211
5.	Bryson Dechambeau, SMU	69-73-70—212

TEAM STANDINGS

1.	Illinois	285-294-281—860
1.	SMU	285-288-287—860
3.	UNLV	295-290-278—863
4.	UCLA	293-289-287—869
5.	Oregon	297-293-281—871
	did not make cut
6.	COLORADO	277-300-302—879
7.	Alabama	298-299-285—882
8.	Virginia Tech	309-294-291—894
9.	East Carolina	306-293-296—895
10.	Georgia Southern	301-297-304—902
11.	Marquette	306-290-308—904
12.	New Mexico State	309-301-296—906
13.	Alabama State	302-318-291—911
14.	Penn	322-305-302—929