By Joy Chakravarty
Freshly-minted Hero World Challenge champion Viktor Hovland has given a glowing appraisal of Dubai-based amateur Rayhan Thomas.

The 24-year-old Hovland is an Oklahoma State University alumnus and remains a regular at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, the home base of the OSU Cowboys, even two years after turning pro. The Norwegian, who climbed to world No.7 following his win in the Bahamas, also has his residence there.

Thomas, who became the first amateur to win on the MENA Tour (2016 Dubai Creek Open) and was tied second at the 2018 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, joined OSU in 2019. But he struggled with his swing for more than a year and spent most of his time in the driving range and sidelines watching his teammates continue to add to the legacy of such stars as Hovland and Matthew Wolff.

RELATED: Dubai prodigy Rayhan Thomas reveals ‘mental and physical’ toll of his return from rock bottom

In his quest to get back his swing, the 21-year-old decided not to come home to Dubai in the summer of 2021, playing tournaments and putting in the reps in the US. He played several rounds with Hovland over the period, feeding on the experience of the three-time PGA Tour champion, and forging a strong bond with the Norwegian.

The move is now paying dividends as Thomas has had several encouraging outings in the past couple of months. He played a key role in OSU finishing second at the season-ending East Lake Cup and was second in his last individual event – the Herb Wimberly Intercollegiate. Having dropped down close to 2,000th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, his recent form has helped him climb to No. 951.

Thomas believes his best in college golf is yet to come, and from what he has seen, Hovland has complete faith in the Indian.

Photo by Joy Chakravarty.

“I think he is having a good year, and I think he has a really good future,” said Hovland speaking exclusively to Golf Digest Middle East during the Hero World Challenge in Bahamas.

“He is such a fun guy to be around and he has got a very good head on his shoulders. He is still very young, but speaks very eloquently and thinks about everything that he does. He goes about his business with purpose, and he is pretty smart.

“You know, he struggled a little bit early in his first year in college, but it was really nice to see him kind of get into a rhythm and start playing well at the end of this year.

“I think he is pretty motivated too. He keeps working hard and I see no reason why he should not have a great year.”

Having spent his years with coach Alan Bratton and his team at one of the most successful college golf programmes, Hovland says he completely understands what Thomas has gone through in the first couple of years.

“He is not the only player at Oklahoma State to have struggled. Karsten Creek is a tough place. It is one of the most prestigious golf programmes in the State. There are a lot of things that put pressure on you. When you are part of such a team, you just want to play well so badly. And there are times when it just doesn’t work out. We have had a lot of success, but unfortunately, we also have a lot of experience of players struggling as well,” explained Hovland.

“But then again, our struggles help us kind of know more about ourselves. It’s all about the team telling him the right things and making him comfortable, making him relaxed. He is very well-liked by Coach Bratton and he is working on good things, and eventually, his game is gonna turn around.”

Thomas had earlier told Golf Digest Middle East that Hovland had become a mentor for him and he seeks a lot of advice from the PGA Tour star.

“Yeah…that’s one thing I like about him. He keeps asking questions. We speak a lot, but it’s not like just golf stuff. Swing advice is probably not the best advice I can give, but it’s things like asking about how life on tour is, how do you think mentally in a certain situation. The small things. He seems like he listens and asks more questions. And that’s good,” said Hovland.

Thomas is back in Duba for his winter break.

The post Viktor Hovland backs fellow OSU Cowboy Rayhan Thomas to have ‘great year’ in 2022 appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

When Matthew Wolff made a birdie on the par-3 15th to close out Davis Riley, 4 and 3, and clinch OSU’s third point, the sound—and the result—was unmistakable. The Cowboys had claimed their 11th national title, ending the second-longest title drought for the vaunted program since it won its first back in 1963 and vanquishing its loss to Alabama in the 2014 NCAA final.

The cheers from the nearly 5,000 spectators in attendance were drenched with joy, but contained drops of relief, too. The fans didn’t mind that the climax to a historic season in which the 2017-’18 Cowboys matched the school record with 10 team titles (in 13 starts) was missing the usual drama associated with a match-play final. They just wanted the W.

The same went for the players.

“It’s a dream really,” said Wolff, the national freshman of the year, who’s unusual swing has turned him into a celebrity of sorts this week. “And to do it in front of all these people, it’s special.”

Domination.@OSUCowboyGolf sweeps Alabama to capture their 11th #NCAAGolf national title on home turf ? pic.twitter.com/wpDpdU0spg

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) May 30, 2018

How dominant a victory was it for Oklahoma State? Consider that the five-man lineup played the jaw-dropping equivalent of 21 under par on the day en route to a 5-0 victory, just the third match-play sweep in any round since 2012 and the first ever in the finals.

Arguably the most impressive part of Oklahoma State’s performance was the way the champions stared down the pressure of the moment and never flinched. The Cowboys were ranked No. 1 entering the championship and earned the No. 1 seed after they posted the low 72-hole score in stroke play. It was an open secret (some even calling it a curse) that no No. 1 seed had gone on to win the title since the NCAA added match play into the championship in 2009. Yet, anything less than a victory would have been considered a failure.

Shane Bevel
Hovland went 3-0 in match play during the 2018 NCAA Championship, including a convincing win in the finals against Alabama.

Adding to the pressure was the fact that other recent Cowboy squads facing similar circumstances had been unable to come through. OSU’s 2009 team was ranked No. 1, but lost in the quarterfinals. OSU’s 2010 team was ranked No. 1, but lost in the finals. OSU’s 2011 squad had future PGA Tour pros Peter Uihlein, Morgan Hoffmann and Kevin Tway, and was hosting the national championship at Karsten Creek, but they too stumbled, losing in the semifinals to eventual winner Augusta State.

But this was no repeat of the 2011. To the delight of the locals, every putt the Cowboys lined up on Wednesday seemed to drop. And it wasn’t just OSU coach Alan Bratton’s All-Americans, sophomore Viktor Hovland (a 4-and-3 winner over Lee Hodges to up his match-play record this week to 3-0) and Wolff carrying the load. But it was the entire lineup, freshman Austin Eckroat (1-up winner over Davis Shore) and senior Kristoffer Ventura (3 and 2 over Wilson Furr) each earning a point, Eckroat going 3-0 in match play for the week.

Nobody, though, was more dominant than Zach Bauchou. The junior from Forest, Va., teeing it up in the anchor fifth match against Jonathan Hardee, played the front nine in the equivalent of seven-under 29, including a hole-out for eagle from a greenside bunker on the par-5 ninth, to take a 7-up lead at the turn. Amazingly, his would the first point on the board for the Cowboys when he closed out the match, 8 and 7.

“The strength of my game was putting, and I kind of got it going,” Bauchou said.

And LeBron James kind of knows what it’s like to play in the NBA finals.

Shane Bevel
Oklahoma State had plenty of fan support at Karsten Creek to help the team rally to win the NCAA title.

Even without hindsight, it was clear Alabama needed to get off to a hot start early to try to silence the spectators and keep OSU’s golfers from feeding off the cheers. But it just didn’t happen. Oklahoma State players won the first hole in three of the first four matches and took 22 of the first 45 holes overall. Furr was the only Alabama player able to get in front in his match as the team could only win eight holes on the front nine. Yet they shot the equivalent of four over par, hardly a horrendous number.

“We didn’t play that bad today. I know the score looks awful. They had like three guys seven and eight under,” said Alabama men’s coach Jay Seawell, who is now 2-2 in NCAA Championship matches, having lost in 2012, but won in 2013 and 2014. “You tip your cap. Our guys fought their tails off. They did it with class. I’ll never forget them.

“We wish it was the other way. It hurts a little bit, but they did everything we could ask from them as a coach.”

Related: Augusta’s Broc Everett saves best for last in winning NCAA individual title

Since the start of the match-play era in 2009, Oklahoma State’s record in the championship has been as frustrating as it was disappointing. Five previous times, the Cowboys have advanced out of stroke play to get into the knock-out stage of the championship, but they never could be the last team standing.

Bruce Waterfield/OSU Athletics
Bratton (right) now has a NCAA title as both a player and a coach at OSU.

In this midst of this, OSU did the unthinkable, failing to actually qualify for the NCAA Championship in 2012 and ending a string of 64 appearances at the national championship. A year later, OSU athletic director Mike Holder, formerly the school’s most celebrated golf coach, having won eight NCAA titles from 1973 to 2003, decided to change coaches. He replaced his successor, Mike McGraw, who coached the last OSU team to win NCAAs in 2006, and brought on one of his former players, Alan Bratton, in the summer of 2013.

Bratton is all Cowboy, a two-time first-team All-American who helped lead the program to the team title in 1995. No one is more aware of the school’s celebrated history, and its unwavering expectation for excellence. To Bratton’s credit, he’s been able to pass down the lore—OSU had finished in the top four at NCAAs 18 straight years from 1975 to 1992—to his players in a way that is meaningful but not overwhelming. The most recent example? He had their golf bags embossed with the years of the school’s NCAA titles.

“We’ve owed those guys a championship for a long time,” said Bratton, acknowledging OSU golfers from past title teams, several of whom were in attendance on Wednesday. “This is a special, special place, and today was about all those guys and this team. I’m just really proud of the performance. They took everything that people threw at them all year, and they got to live their dream right here.”

Shane Bevel

And as for the rest of the college golf world? Well, it might have been their nightmare. The squad loses only Ventura from this year’s championship lineup, leaving loaded for bear come the 2018-’19 season.

“We’ve got four of them back,” Bratton said, “so they have more legacy to write.”

The saving grace? Next year’s NCAA Championship will be played at The Blessings Golf Club in Arkansas. It’s going to be a lot harder for another 5,000 rabid Oklahoma State fans to get there than it was to Karsten Creek.

The post Oklahoma State wins the 2018 NCAA men’s golf title in runaway victory over Alabama appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.