Colorado University Athletics
Buff Golfers Ready For Pac-12 Championships
April 28, 2016 | Men's Golf
The men's golf team has arrived in Utah for the Pac-12 Golf Championships eager to show its colleagues they belong among the premier schools in the conference.
SALT LAKE CITY — The University of Colorado arrived here Wednesday evening in advance of the 57th Annual Pac-12 Golf Championships eager to show its colleagues they belong among the premier schools in the conference.
Senior Philip Juel-Berg, juniors Ethan Freeman and Jeremy Paul, sophomore John Souza and freshmen Wilson Belk and Ross Macdonald will represent the Buffaloes in Utah to compete for the Buffaloes. It's an interesting sextet … the three upperclassmen have played in a combined seven Pac-12 Championships, while the youngsters are all appearing in their first league event.
The six will start attacking the Salt Lake Country Club course on Friday with 36 holes, followed by 18 each on Saturday and Sunday. This will be the highest elevation the Pac-12's have ever been played – 4,800 feet – that is until next year when CU hosts the event at Boulder Country Club.
What might make the 7,209 yard, par-72 layout at Salt Lake even more challenging could be the weather, with rain expected through Thursday night and possibly into Friday, although the forecast appears to be much better now than it did at the beginning of the week.
Paul has emerged as one of the top golfers in the nation, his 70.45 stroke average currently 13th in the NCAA. He's the CU leader in most statistical categories and has had all 31 of his rounds count toward the team score (and 48 rounds in a row). Juel-Berg, who averages 71.87, has been consistent most of the year and with Paul, has provided a solid 1-2 punch. Freeman has quietly enjoyed a year where he has improved at over two strokes per round, and with his 72.55 average, the Buffs are bidding to have three sub-73 players for the first time in their history.
"It's been a little up and down," head coach Roy Edwards said of the season to date. "Jeremy, Philip and Ethan have really been the key leaders of the team on the course, and they've been strong all year. It's been good to see the development of some of the new guys as well. We've had a really strong spring, with a lot of good head-to-head wins, and the team has really developed over the course of the season as a whole.
"When we play our best, we're patient, we're calm and we do our best to minimize our mistakes," he continued. "When we manage our games, we have been good at taking things one shot at a time and keeping from getting ahead of ourselves. That will be of paramount importance at Salt Lake Country Club and in a 72-hole format."
Colorado enters ranked at No. 66 by GolfStat and No. 68 by Golfweek (both out of 303 schools). Though enjoying a very good year overall, it hasn't translated over to the rankings; two poor performances in the fall (11th at New Mexico's Tucker and 10th in Cal's Alister Mackenzie) hurt CU's ranking coming out of the fall, with the highest the Buffs having been able to climb being No. 59 earlier this month. Then add in a poor day in the weather-shortened "The Maxwell" two weeks ago where the final round was cancelled and the taste of a bad day has lingered.
Thus the team goal of proving they belong in the same breath as any of the six Pac-12 schools that currently occupy the nation's top 25. After all, the Buffs have racked up 106 wins against Division I competition.
"We have 106 wins, and the record is 123, so it would cool to close the year out breaking our win record," Edwards said. "The season is really how we predicted it; there were some inconsistences at first with the new players, but over the course of the last six or seven events, we've established much more consistency."
The Pac-12 has long instituted a 6-for 5 scoring format for its title meet, obviously a reward for those schools with greater depth and a challenge for those without it. Quite often, it's either the first or only the second such format teams see during the season; this will be the first time this season that the Buffs are competing in a 6-for-5.
"I think we're more settled," Edwards noted. "Last year, our team was really built for a five-count-four tournament, and it really showed at the Pac-12. This year, the team has really grown and evolved. I feel like every player has improved from a year ago, as well as improving over the course of the season. There's certainly more depth than we had last year, and a six-count-five is a unique format that at the end of the day, each guy has to play his own ball and be responsible for his own score. That's what's going to help us the most."
Juel-Berg will become the 23rd player in CU history (out of over 350) to play in four league championship meets, joining such past CU greats as Terry Kahl, Steve Jones, Rick Cramer, Bobby Kalinowski, Knut Ekjord, Matt Zions, Kane Webber, Edward McGlasson, Derek Tolan and the most recent— David Oraee, who did so last year. Kalinowski is the last Buff to win a conference title, claiming Big 8 medalist honors in both 1993 and 1994.
In advance of the championship, Edwards and assistant coach Patrick Grady flew over the Continental Divide and played Salt Lake CC on April 20. Foreign to most of the golfers in the conference, they wanted a good look at the course ahead of the team's practice round Thursday.
"It's a spectacular course, very traditional in a sense that it's unique," Edwards said. "The front and back nine are different styles. The front winds down around a creek, and the back slopes off on a hill. There's a 100-foot cliff that divides the course, it's really cool. It's got a little Cherry Hills in it, a little Columbine with room off the tee in some spots. It's a traditional tree-lined course, and there will be a lot of holes you can make birdies but several where you're going to be happy with par."
The Buffs have yet to truly have a breakout individual performance in the four years CU has been a member of the Pac-12 Conference. Oraee has the best finish – a tie for 12th in 2014, followed by Freeman tying for 16th that same year. Does Edwards believe that one or more Buffs are primed to break through?
"No question," he said. "You don't want to compare previous years at the Pac-12 Championship, because each team has its own identity. We have some guys playing well going into this championship, and several guys are primed to play well. Jeremy has had a really good spring, he has clearly established himself as one of the top players in the country. I also expect Philip to be at his best this week as well."
Stanford, ranked No. 4 by both Golfweek and GolfStat, is the defending champion, with Southern California ranked No. 2 and 6, respectively in each. The Buffs finished eighth in their inaugural Pac-12 appearance in 2012, and dipped to 10th in 2013, before claiming fourth in 2014 and 11th a year ago. The margin between finishing third or fourth and way down the line in the Pac-12 has often been as minimal as 30-40 strokes … but over 72 holes and an extra scorer compared to many other league meets. Colorado's last league title was the 1968 Big 8 crown.
NOTES: Colorado is 106-50-1 against Division I competition (97-37-1 outside of the Pac-12), clinching a better than .500 record and thus has met the first criteria for selection into the NCAA Regionals (May 16-18) ... CU has qualified for the postseason each of the last three seasons and six times in nine years under Edwards … Opening pairings are by random draw (sans the defending champ, Stanford, which opens in the first group on No. 1); Colorado is paired with Arizona and Oregon State and will tee off on No. 1 from 9:30-10:20 a.m. MDT (Round 1) and from 2:30-3:20 p.m. (Round 2) … Salt Lake CC is normally a par-72 configuration, but a par-5 on the back nine has been altered to a par-4 (No. 13) ... Opening pairings are by a random draw (sans the defending champ, which opens in the first groups on No. 1); Colorado is paired with California and Oregon State and will tee off on No. 10 from 8:36-9:21 a.m. MDT (Round 1) and from 1:51-2:46 p.m. (Round 2) ... Stanford is the two-time defending champion, though seven different schools have won the title over the last 12 seasons; Oregon State, Washington State and the two 2012 newcomers, CU and Utah, are the only ones without a Pac-12 crown … The NCAA Championship selections will be announced live on the Golf Channel on Thursday, May 5 beginning at 7:30 a.m. MDT (also streamed live on its website) ... Colorado will host the 2017 Pac-12 Championship at Boulder Country Club next April 28-30; it will be Colorado's first chance to host a conference championship since the Big 8 meet in 1972 … Live scoring will be available at www.golfstat.com.
