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Gold Mountain Golf Club
SAN FRANCISCO -- USF's men's golf team opens play at the West Coast Conference Championships on Monday with hopes the tournament will serve as a spring board for reaching the team's ultimate goal of qualifying for the NCAA Championships in late May.
The 54-hole event, which will be held at the Gold Mountain Golf Club in Bremerton, Wash., will be contested over three days. The field will tee off at 8:10 a.m. on Monday.
Saint Mary's, ranked 23
rd by Golfstat, is the defending champion after the Gaels unseated the Dons last year at San Juan Oaks Golf Course in San Juan Bautista. BYU, ranked 37
th by Golfstat and San Diego, ranked 72
nd, also figure to be in the hunt for the team title.
USF head coach Rich Yokoda is hoping the momentum of a fourth place finish against a very strong field at Stanford's U.S. Intercollegiate event will carry over to the WCC's.
“The U.S. Intercollegiate was a real big event for our confidence because we were coming off perhaps our worst tournament of the year. We dropped 10 spots in the rankings after finishing 14
th at the Duck Invitational but we delivered some real solid golf our next time out at Stanford where we beat six teams ranked ahead of us.”
With the WCC Championships serving as the first event of the “championship season,” Yokoda feels the Dons are peaking at the right time with NCAA Regionals in the offing next month.
“We take a lot of pride in our conference tournament but at the same time we know it's a step to achieving our ultimate goal of finishing in the top-five at regionals to qualify for the NCAA Championships.
“Some of the pressure is off since our ranking is inside the top-60, so we should be in good shape to earn a spot in regionals. Being healthy, staying relaxed and feeling like we are free-wheeling it so some extent and having a good time out there will be keys for us.”
The Dons are expected to send a lineup consisting of Travis Taylor, Seb Crookall-Nixon, Cory McElyea,
Jobim Carlos and
Emil Liljeroth to Bremerton as USF searches for its 11
th conference title and third in the last five years.
Taylor, who won the 2011 WCC individual title in a playoff over San Diego's Alex Ching, has posted five top-10 finishes this season, including his last two events, where he finished eighth at The Triumph at Pauma Valley and tied for eighth at the U.S. Intercollegiate.
McElyea's opening round 66 at the U.S. Intercollegiate helped the junior from Santa Cruz to a ninth place finish, his third top-10 showing of the year.
USF's hottest golfer might be freshman Seb Crookall-Nixon, who is coming off a sixth-place finish at the U.S. Intercollegiate which featured one of the strong fields of the spring. He also tied for seventh at the Alister Mackenzie Invitational and finished fourth at Pauma Valley.
“Seb has been amazing,” said Yokoda. “He was involved in a car accident last summer so for him to get his game in shape where he could even play in the fall was semi-miraculous. He also changed his swing and equipment but he is playing at a very high level right now. He's the most professional freshman I've seen in college golf as far as how he goes about his business and manages his game.
“He's a very fast learner and is amazingly resilient. He also has one of the best attitudes on the course for someone who is very demanding of himself.”
Add Carlos to the mix and Yokoda feels he has four players who have the ability to win any tournament.
“It's the first time in my seven years here that we have more than two players who have a mindset of winning the golf tournament. Taylor, Jobim, Seb and Cory all have a healthy competition within themselves to win the tournament.”
The wet and cool weather in the Pacific Northwest is are expected to make conditions even more challenging at the Gold Mountain Golf Club, which is hosting the event for the first time.
“It's a very demanding golf course,” said Yokoda. “It's a real ball-striker's golf course and a really good test of golf. I expect scores to be a little higher than in past years.”
WCC Tournament Notables
The WCC has sponsored a men's golf championship since 1969…Pepperdine has claimed a conference-high 17 titles, including 15 since 1990…USF won titles in 1970, '71, '81, '82, '83, '84, '86, '88, '90, 2009 and '11…Dos have claimed 11 individual conference titles, including Travis Taylor's victory at the 2011 event…Taylor, ranked 51
st in the latest Golfstat rankings, is the highest-ranked player in the field…defending WCC champion Ben Geyer of Saint Mary's is ranked 55
th…
