Men's Golf Off To The Desert For Thunderbird Invitational
April 7, 2004
CORVALLIS, Ore.- -
Complete Release in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader
THIS WEEK: Coming off an impressive fourth-place finish at last week's Duck Invitational, Oregon State looks to continue its push toward NCAA Regional Championship qualification Friday-Saturday, April 9-10 at the Thunderbird Invitational, hosted by Arizona State, at ASU's Karsten Golf Course in Tempe, Arizona.
With only two tournaments left before the Pac-10 Championships, the Beavers will need consistent play to ensure a Regional berth.
"This is a great field," said head coach Brian Watts. "It will basically be a preview of the Pac-10 Championships, so we're looking forward to competing this weekend.
"If we can play well in this field, it will definitely help our confidence going into the Pac-10s. You need to shoot low numbers on this course to be competitive, and we feel we can do that and beat some teams we need to beat."
Brian Kelley (so.), Brad Simpson (jr.), Sean Deacon (sr.), Jonathan Green (fr.), and Jay Ross (fr.) will make up OSU's squad for this tournament.
In the qualifier for this tournament at Trysting Tree, Ross, Cameron MacKenzie (jr.), and Mitch Gillis (fr.) combined for nine birdies and an eagle over the final seven holes, which culminated when Ross sank a four-foot putt on the 18th hole to earn the final spot.
"We had an awesome qualifier," Watts said. "It was very competitive and we played some outstanding golf."
Simpson is fresh off his best finish of the season after earning second place last week in Junction City. Simpson's finish was the highest individual finish by a Beaver since the 2001 season when Sean Deacon won the Northwest Collegiate in the fall of 2001.
Gillis and Green also had top-ten finishes last week, both tying for eighth place. It was the highest finish for both Gillis and Green, and their 2-over 218s also were season lows for both players.
MacKenzie also posted his best finish of the season, tying for 11th.
Last year at the Thunderbird, ASU shot a tournament-record 40-under 824 to claim the team title over USC by eight strokes. The Sun Devils have won this tournament four of the last five years. David Schultz of TCU took home individual medalist honors last year with a 15-under 201. OSU tied for 17th with a 2-under 862.
Play begins Friday with 36 holes beginning at 6:30 a.m. PST with a shotgun start. The final 18 holes will be played on Saturday starting at 6:00 a.m. PST with teams teeing off from holes one and ten.
COMPLETE FIELD: Arizona, Arizona State (two teams), Brigham Young, California, New Mexico, Oregon, Oregon State, Pepperdine, San Diego State, Stanford, Texas Tech, UNLV, USC, UTEP, and Washington.
HEAD COACH: Brian Watts enters his third season as the head men's golf coach at Oregon State after spending three seasons as the assistant for both the men's and women's programs at OSU. With Watts at the helm, the Beavers returned to postseason action last year and are poised to continue their tradition of excellence for years to come.
Watts brings to the program a wealth of experience from his years on professional tours, but equally important is his understanding of Northwest recruiting and the use of OSU's state-of-the-art facilities.
Prior to taking the reigns at OSU, Watts helped both the men's and women's teams advance to their respective NCAA West Regional Championships as an assistant during two different stints. The highlight came at the end of the 2000-01 campaign when the men's squad used a run late in the year to advance to the NCAA Championships for the third time in the school's history. With Watts' help, the Beavers made the cut for the first time, and ended their season with a 12th-place finish at the NCAAs.
