NCAA individual
champion Scott Langley
In a modern-day retelling of David
vs. Goliath, tiny, low-budget Augusta
State put itself squarely into college
golf’s big-time Sunday with an upset of
10-time national champion Oklahoma
State to win the NCAA Championship.
The Jaguars beat the Cowboys 3-1-1
in the match-play final at the Honors
Course in Ooltewah, Tenn., for the biggest sports moment in school history.
From the outside, Augusta State’s
victory comes as a colossal shock. But
college golf insiders aren’t quite as
amazed. The
Jaguars came
into the
tourna-
ment
ranked
as a top- 10 team and qualified comfort-
ably for the match-play quarterfinals as
the No. 6 seed. They then dismissed No.
3 Georgia Tech (3-2-0) and No. 2 Florida
State (4-1-0) before dropping No. 1
Oklahoma State in the finals.
When the NCAA made the switch
last year to a new tournament format
of 54 holes of stroke play followed by
three days of match play, many questions were raised about whether or not
the last team standing was in fact the
best in the country. For the second year
in a row, Oklahoma State qualified for
the match-play portion as the top seed
when its 14-under 850 total bettered the
field by four strokes. And for the second
year in a row, the Cowboys fell short of
a national crown. Oklahoma State lost
in the first round to Georgia last year.
This year’s drama started early in
Tennessee when, after 54 holes, Stan-
ford, Arizona State and San Diego tied
for the eighth and final spot at 4-over
868. The three teams then played holes
10, 11, and 15 through 18 with the
best four out of five scores counting.
Stanford and San Diego tied at 2 under
while Arizona State bowed out early
at 1 under. Two holes later, Stanford’s
Sihwan Kim recorded the only birdie
when he rolled in a 15-footer on 17 to
give Stanford the last spot in the match
play quarterfinals.
in round two. Langley likely will return
for a title defense next year and has a
couple other goals in mind. “I would
like to do the Walker Cup,” he said. An
NCAA Division I title might help him out.
San Diego’s Alex Ching and Uihlein
finished runner-up at 8-under 208. Ching, the 36-hole leader, shot a 1-over
73 to go with his 69-66 start. Ching
needed a birdie on 18 to force a playoff
with Langley, but a poor tee shot and
approach left him with a chip from the
greenside rough that never got close.
Uihlein posted his third under-par
round of the championship (1-under
71) to follow his 69 and 68 and helped
the Cowboys claim the top seed for the
match-play quarterfinals.
On Friday, Langley was named first-team All-American. Others honored:
John Chin (UC-Irvine), Nils Floren (Texas
Tech), Dustin Garza (Wichita State),
Russell Henley (Georgia), Andrea Pavan
(Texas A&M), Jonathan Randolph (
Mississippi), Taylor (Washington), Uihlein,
(Oklahoma State), Diego Velasquez (
Oregon State), and Wong (Oregon). RESULTS
PAST TEAM AND INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONS
2005 Georgia James Lepp (Washington)
2006 Oklahoma St. Jonathan Moore (Oklahoma St.)
2007 Stanford Jamie Lovemark (Southern Cal)
2008 UCLA Kevin Chappell (UCLA)
2009 Texas A&M Matt Hill (North Carolina St.)
2010 Augusta St. Scott Langley (Illinois)
