Top amateur golf moments of 2018, No. 8: Orange Crush

At AmateurGolf.com, we admit to loving the amateur sector of this game for the stories, the depth of the players, the remarkable courses, the history of the tournaments and the sheer love of the game displayed by amateur golfers. As 2018 comes to a close, we’ve gathered the year’s best stories for a countdown to the end of the season. Be sure to come back each day to relive the moments that made amateur golf great this year.

Click here to see the whole list as it is revealed

Inside the college golf world, Karsten Creek – Oklahoma State’s out-in-nature playground where champions are clearly honed – is a little bit famous. It takes years of success and a strong pipeline to the PGA Tour to build the foundation that Oklahoma State has built in men’s golf (and of course a reality TV show doesn’t hurt, as the Golf Channel produced this past year to showcase the Cowboys and their rivalry with Oklahoma).

That said, two things that unfolded at the end of the 2018 postseason were wholly unsurprising: That Oklahoma State trounced Alabama, 5-0, on the way to its first national title since 2006, and that a veritable mob of orange-clad fans was on-hand to see it.

Past the setting and the score, Oklahoma’s national title was also notable because it marked the first time that the No. 1 match-play seed won the NCAA Championship, the first time Oklahoma State had won at its home course and the first time the Cowboys had claimed a national title since the match-play format was instituted in 2009. It was also the first 5-0 sweep in the match-play era.

The Cowboys won 10 times in the regular season, including seven in a row. They had two first-team All-Americans on the roster (Matthew Wolff and Viktor Hovland, who later in the year would win the U.S. Amateur) and four of the nation’s top 35 players, including three of the top 15. Anything less than a victory would have been a crushing blow for college golf’s powerhouse program.

When asked earlier in the week if the team felt pressure because of the high expectations and passionate home fans hungry for a national championship, Cowboy junior Zach Bauchou confidently said, “I don’t think there’s any pressure when you’re as good as we are throughout the lineup.”

And with that, what’s left to say? Oklahoma State ended its fall with a 32-shot win at the Royal Oaks Intercollegiate for one of two fall titles. Now we await the run for a repeat.