The Washington Huskies put forth one of their strongest efforts of the season over the last two days at the Eugene Country Club, winning the Oregon Duck Invitational by 17 shots to secure their fourth team title of the season.
The Huskies, ranked seventh nationally by Golfweek/Sagarin, finished the 54-hole event at 19-under 833, which was 17 strokes better than second-place Utah, which finished at 2-under 850. Top-ranked Arizona State and Oregon State tied for third at 17-over 869 while host Oregon (+25) rounded out the top-five.
Washington, which led Utah by just four strokes heading into the final round, carded a 3-under 281 on Tuesday while the Utes struggled to a 10-over 294, giving the Huskies a runaway victory. It marks the fourth team title of the season for UW, which also won the Husky Invitational, Fighting Irish Classic and Oregon State Invitational in the fall.
"It was sweet to win, and it's especially sweet to win in Eugene," said Washington head coach Alan Murray. "The guys played well, and we won handily. I'm really proud of the guys."
Washington's
Teddy Lin,
R.J. Manke and
Petr Hruby occupied the top three spots on the individual leaderboard, with Lin earning a two-stroke win over Manke after carding a final round 70 to finish at 9-under 204 (67-67-70) for the tournament.
Taehoon Song also earned a top-10 finish, tying for ninth at 2-over 215.
"I'm so happy for Teddy," Murray said. "He really deserved that. And to have a 1-2-3 finish individually is really cool."
The top-ranked (Golfweek/Sagarin) Sun Devils couldn't get anything going in their first trip to the Pacific Northwest this season, finishing 36 strokes behind the team that figures to be its biggest threat at the upcoming Pac-12 Championships in late April.
At 1-under 212, freshman
Josele Ballester was the only ASU player to finish in the red, as the Spaniard carded a final round 68 to move eight spots up the leaderboard into fifth place.
It was a strong showing by the Utes, who had four players finish in the top-10, including
Blake Tomlinson (4th; -2),
Javier Barcos (t-6th; +1),
Tristan Mandur (t-9th; +2) and
Braxton Watts (t-9th; +2).
Washington and Arizona State won't cross paths again until the Pac-12 Championships which will be held in the Huskies backyard at the Tom Fazio-designed Aldarra Golf Club just outside of Seattle.
The Huskies won't have long to savor this victory. They will join a strong and deep field at The Goodwin, which gets underway on Thursday at Stanford Golf Course.
ABOUT THE Duck Invitational
54 hole men's college tournament hosted by
the
University of Oregon. Team (best four scores out of
five
players each round) and individual competitions.
View Complete Tournament Information