Golfers Finish Tied For Sixth At Pac-12 Championships

SALT LAKE CITY — The University of Colorado men's golf team rebounded with the second-best team score in the final round, which propelled the Buffaloes into a sixth-place tie as the 57th Annual Pac-12 Conference Championships came to a close here Sunday.

No. 4 Stanford captured the title for the third straight year, as the Cardinal rode a tremendous second round 19-under par effort to a final team score of 1,402, which was 18-under par. That easily outdistanced No. 13 California, the first round leader, which finished with a 1,431 team total.

No. 10 Arizona State claimed third (1,439), No. 24 Washington finished fourth (1,443) and second-ranked Southern California went from third at the start of the day to fifth (1,448), as the Bears and Trojans shot the day's ninth and 11th worst scores, respectively.

The Buffs had struggled in the third round conditions with blustery winds, but used that experience to come back and record the second best final round score (10-over 365) in moving up into a sixth-place tie with Oregon. The winds were prevalent the entire round Sunday, averaging in the teens but at times gusting up to in excess of 30 miles per hour. CU and UO finished with identical 1,459 team scores in the 6-for-5 scoring format.

It was CU's second best finish in the Pac-12s since the Buffaloes joined the conference five years ago – only a fourth place finish in 2014 tops this year's effort.

Junior Jeremy Paul wrapped things up with a 2-over par 73, which gave him a 2-under 282 on the 7,209-yard, par-71 Salt Lake Country Club Course layout in tying for seventh. It was the best score and finish by a Buffalo in the five years CU has been a member of the Pac-12 Conference: he topped his own twin brother Yannik's 285 score last year in Pullman, and topped David Oraee's 12th place effort at Tucson in 2014.

Paul was essentially consistent across the board, tying for the most eagles (two) and the 19th-most birdies (14) to go with 41 pars. He played the par-5s at 8-under (fifth best) and had just one hole worse than bogey all weekend (the field combined had 226).

"Jeremy was in control of his game all week, he has been for a few months now, and this was a really strong effort from him," CU head coach Roy Edwards said. "He made some mistakes he's disappointed with, but he really shouldn't be. He should be proud of his performance here this week and proved he should be mentioned in the same breath as the top players in the college game."

Paul's 282 gross score was the best in school history for 72-hole tournament, topping John Lindberg's 284 in the 1987 New Mexico Tucker Invitational; the latter remains the best in relation to par (4-under). The 2-under score in relation to par tied three other performances for the best 72-hole postseason effort: Hale Irwin in the 1967 NCAA Championship (which he won), Bill Musselman in the 1968 NCAA's and Ben Portie at the 2002 NCAA's.

Junior Ethan Freeman put together one of the best rounds in the field to end things here, firing a 1-under 70 for a 10-over 294 total that placed him 35th. After enduring two straight round where he had scored a triple bogey, in the windy conditions he went out on Sunday to record three birdies, 13 pars as just two bogeys. He tied for the team-lead in pars with 48 (fifth in the field), and he played the par-3s here even, sixth best overall.

Sophomore John Souza posted a 4-over 75 to finish up with a 295 (11-over), which tied him for 36th place. He had a team-high five birdies Sunday, but also scored four bogeys, a double and a triple in addition to seven pars. That triple, a seven on the par-4 No. 2 hole sent him to 6-over at the time, but he would forego some back issues and record three birdies in his final seven holes.

Senior Philip Juel-Berg scored a 6-over 77 to wrap up with a 12-over 296, tying for 38th. He was cruising along a 1-over before disaster struck for him on No. 3, where he scored a quadruple bogey seven on the short par-3. That was his only blemish in a 12-hole span where he made 11 pars. He, like Freeman, had 48 pars in the meet.

Freshman Wilson Belk turned in perhaps his finest round as a collegian given the conditions; he matched Freeman with a 1-under par 70 done in the same manner (three birdies, 13 pars, two bogeys) in managing his game exceptionally well. It helped him jump 16 spots in the standings to a 41st place finish with a 13-over 297 score. The 16-spot improvement was the best in the field Sunday, with his 297 the fourth best 72-hole score by a freshman in school history.

Freshman Ross Macdonald rounded out the CU contingent here. After a solid 72 in his opening round, he couldn't get back into that same rhythm and closed things out with an 84, giving him a 26-over total of 310 that placed him 67th in the standings. He had seven birdies and 37 pars here, but was offset by 23 bogeys (10 Sunday) and five doubles.

Arizona State's Jon Rahm claimed medalist honors with a final round 68 for a 12-under 272 total; that bested Arizona's Jordan Gumberg, who also closed with a 68 for a 276 total. Cal's K.K. Limbhasut, who opened with three straight 66s, ballooned to a 79 in the final round and tied for third.

"It was a tough day to play golf, very strong winds and combined with tough hole locations," Edwards said. "Ethan and Wilson had just two spectacular rounds, and I can't underscore how huge those rounds were for the team and how good they were."

So how good were those rounds? There were just two scores in the 60s, recorded by the top two finishers, and three 70's, two by the Buffs and the third by Oregon's Aaron Wise. Only one player matched par, meaning 66 of the 72 players were over par Sunday when the average score was over two strokes higher than any of the previous three rounds – 75.56.

"John's back started bothering him again the other day and for him to gut it out and help us was really important as well," praised Edwards.

"All the guys knew where we were sitting for regionals, as we shared the math with them coming in here," Edwards added. "We know we're on the bubble so they played with a lot of pressure and they responded very well."

Colorado will find out its postseason plans this Thursday when the NCAA Regional selections are announced at 7:30 a.m. MDT on the Golf Channel. There are six regional sites for the May 16-18 tournaments: Albuquerque, Kohler (Wis.), Nashville, Stillwater, Tucson and Tuscaloosa.

NOTES: Only five schools had at least four of their players shoot 75 or better Sunday – Washington had five, with CU, Arizona State, Oregon and Stanford having four each top that 75.56 average of the 72-man field … The Buffs shot the same team score – 1,459 – as they did a year ago when they finished 11th (but was on a par-70 course) … Paul came in ranked as the No. 51 player in the nation; four players ranked ahead of him beat him here, but he topped seven others he was ranked behind … Had this been the standard 5-score-4 tournament, the only change among the top eight would have been CU earning sixth outright; otherwise, it just tightened things up: Stanford (1110), Cal (1132), ASU (1136), Washington (1145), USC (1150), CU (1153), Oregon (1159), UCLA (1160) … The Buffaloes finished second in pars here (261), but were 10th in birdies (39). CU was sixth in par-4 scoring (plus-57 by the five designated scorers), and was seventh in par-3 scoring (+28) and ninth in par-50 scoring (15-under) ... Colorado finished the regular season with a 111-55-2 record against Division I competition (14-18-1 versus Pac-12 schools) CU continues to add to its record for the most rounds in the 60s in a single season, now with 41 and counting … Paul's seventh place finish gives the Buffs 29 this season, third most and just four back of the most in school history (33 in 1999-00) … Paul actually saw his overall season average rise .01 to 70.46; his spring squad-best is 70.28; both are threatening Kane Webber's school records in both, 71.46 and 71.30, respectively, which he set as a senior in 2003-04 ... The NCAA Championship Finals will be in Eugene from May 27-June 1.

BUFFALO INDIVIDUALS

T7.	Jeremy Paul	67-68-74-73—282
35.	Ethan Freeman	75-73-76-70—294
T36.	John Souza	76-70-74-75—295
T38.	Philip Juel-Berg	72-77-70-77—296
41.	Wilson Belk	74-75-78-70—297
67.	Ross Macdonald	72-77-77-84—310

INDIVIDUAL LEADERS

1.	Jon Rahm, Arizona State	70-66-68-68—272
2.	Jordan Gumberg, Arizona	68-71-69-68—276
T3.	K.K. Limbhasut, California	66-66-66-79—277
T3.	David Boote, Stanford	68-66-70-73—277
5.	Franklin Huang, Stanford	66-72-68-73—279
6.	Maverick McNealy, Stanford	69-71-69-72—281
T7.	Jeremy Paul, Colorado	67-68-74-73—282
T7.	Jonathan Garrick, UCLA	67-68-69-78—282
T9.	Aaron Wise, Oregon	73-69-71-70—283
T9.	Corey Pereira, Washington	72-69-69-73—283

TEAM STANDINGS

1.	Stanford	352-336-348-366—1402
2.	California	350-343-355-383—1431
3.	Arizona State	359-352-364-364—1439
4.	Washington	360-355-360-368—1443
5.	Southern California	356-348-363-381—1448
6.	COLORADO	360-363-371-365—1459
6.	Oregon	370-356-366-367—1459
8.	UCLA	358-365-360-382—1465
9.	Washington State	380-365-357-374—1476
10.	Arizona	361-367-374-380—1482
11.	Oregon State	371-365-372-377—1485
12.	Utah	378-363-364-391—1496