Men's Golf Set For Southwestern Invitational
Feb. 25, 2000
CORVALLIS, Ore. - - The Oregon State men's golf team heads to California to take on another top-notch field at the Southwestern Invitational on Feb. 28-29 at the par-71 North Ranch Country Club near Los Angeles.
Nine top-25 teams are slated to golf in the Southwestern, including OSU's Pacific-10 rivals No. 12 Stanford, No. 22 Washington, No. 25 UCLA, and five-time defending Pac-10 champion Arizona State, ranked eighth. Southern California, ranked 15th, hosts the tournament.
"The Southwestern Intercollegiate has been a fine tournament for years," said OSU head coach Mike Ketcham. "It presents another wonderful challenge for our team at this time."
The Southwestern - hosted by USC - has seen many current PGA Tour professionals over its 22 previous years. Fred Couples, John Daly, Corey Pavin, Phil Mickelson - whose brother Tim golfs for OSU - and Tiger Woods have all teed it up at the Southwestern during their college careers.
Ketcham will be taking Mickelson, Bryan Geiberger, Eric Dahm, and Kyle Hudson to the Southwestern. Mickelson, Geiberger, Lepak, and Hudson all played in the Taylor Made Intercollegiate Feb. 17-18. Dahm has not seen tournament action since the Pepperdine Invitational in October, where he finished tied for 27th.
Ketcham thinks that the Beavers will be able to take advantage of the course's layout. "We have played this golf course," he said. "It's a ballstriker's golf course, you have to keep the ball in play off the tee. I feel like, as a group, we drive the golfball very well."
In their most recent tournament, the Beavers placed seventh in a field of 24 that featured eight top-25 teams at the Taylor Made Intercollegiate tournament in Hawaii.
Senior Tim Mickelson played his best tournament of the year, shooting 74-69-70--213 to tie for fourth place. Mickelson's 69 and 70 were both better than his previous low score for the year.
"Tim had one of the better performances I've seen in a long time in division-one golf," Ketcham said, in reference to Mickelson's 2-under 70 in the final round under extremely windy conditions.
Sophomore John Lepak had the low round of the tournament for the Beavers with a second round 68.
"This is a team that I've seen getting better every week," said Ketcham. "Obviously, the time we want to be playing our best golf is come April and May. I feel like we're on course to do that."
OSU has been getting solid individual performances, but the key for the Beavers, according to Ketcham, will be to narrow the gap between the first and second scores and the fourth and fifth scores.
"This team has the capability of doing that. Once we do that, I think we'll be able to compete with the nation's best," said Ketcham.
TEAMS (Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings in parentheses)
USC (15), Arizona State (8), BYU (7), Stanford (12), Washington (22), Kansas (23), Fresno State (14), UCLA (25), Oklahoma (24), Pepperdine, Oregon State (27), Oregon, San Jose State, and San Francisco.
