By Dave Shedloski
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W. Va. – Viktor Hovland, the standout All-American from Oklahoma State, has proven to be a quick learner after turning professional in June, nearly earning his PGA Tour card in just five starts before getting it done in the Korn Ferry Finals.

Some things, however, are going to take more time to master.

Hovland said Wednesday at The Greenbrier Resort, where he is competing in the tour’s season opener, A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier, that veteran Charles Howell III has been offering him some guidance the past few months. Howell also is a former Oklahoma State All-American who won an NCAA Division I individual title in 2000.

“I’ve been playing a few practice rounds with Charles, and he’s been great with me,” said Hovland, 21, a native of Oslo, Norway, who captured the 2018 U.S. Amateur title. “Obviously, he’s been out here for 20 years now. You know, it’s been really cool to be around him. He’s a former Cowboy as well and really cares about you, so it’s been nice to talk to him a little bit.”

A three-time PGA Tour winner, Howell is considered one of the more approachable and polite players in the game. So it was a bit surprising when Hovland, an easy-going spirit himself, shared a piece of advice from Howell that really hit home.

“He told me be selfish out here,” Hovland said. “You know, you want to be a nice guy and talk to everyone, but your time is valuable. You got to put your head down and do your business. You know, that’s essentially why you’re here.”

Usually found with a perpetual smile on his face, the Norwegian was asked what a selfish version of himself might look like. “Good question. I’m still working on that,” he said, with a smile, of course.

Asked later if he even knew what it meant to be selfish, Hovland shrugged. “I’m not sure exactly how to go about it.”

Perhaps that’s the next lesson. But given Howell’s amenable disposition, he might not be the best teacher.

The post Viktor Hovland, a PGA Tour rookie, receives advice he’s likely to find hard to follow appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

On Wednesday morning, JT trolled Rickie with this post:

Man I just love @RickieFowler’s new way of marking his ball! Of all days too ?? Rolllllllll Tide! #gameday pic.twitter.com/nz8YbPcTiE

— Justin Thomas (@JustinThomas34) May 30, 2018

Rickie has yet to respond, but you can bet there will be some sort of side bet between the two. Earlier this year, Thomas “collected” from Georgia grad Kevin Kisner after the Crimson Tide beat the Bulldogs in the College Football National Championship. Kisner put on an Alabama jersey during the first round of the Sony Open.

It's all in good fun.@JustinThomas34 vs. @K_Kisner @AlabamaFTBL vs. @FootballUGA pic.twitter.com/EirtGkRuQj

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 12, 2018

Don’t be surprised to see Justin or Rickie wearing enemy colours on Thursday at the Memorial.

The post Justin Thomas trolls Rickie Fowler ahead of their alma maters meeting in the NCAA Championship 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.

Wood, whose father is a former U.S. Junior Amateur champion, completed 36 holes at nine-under par 131, a 36-hole qualifying record, eclipsing the record of 132, set by Hank Kim at the TPC Sawgrass in 1994. Wood followed an opening-round 64 at Riviera Country Club on Monday with a three-under 67 at Bel-Air on Tuesday. He finished three strokes ahead of runner-up, Norman Xiong, the recent Western Amateur winner.

Wood is a junior at Oklahoma State, the university his father also attended.

Xiong, who like Wood opened with a six-under 64 at Riviera on Monday, shot an even-par 70 at Bel-Air.

Among those advancing to match play that begins Wednesday at Riviera Country Club was Joaquin Niemann of Chile, who is No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. Niemann, who reached the round of 16 in the Amateur a year ago and tied for 29th in the PGA Tour’s Greenbrier Classic earlier this summer, shot a 69 at Bel-Air and tied for sixth in medal play.

Maverick McNealy, No. 2 in the World Amateur Ranking, had a three-under 67 at Bel-Air, tied for 16th, and advanced to match play.

Among those who did not advance was Stewart Hagestad, the reigning U.S. Mid-Amateur champion who in April became the first Mid-Am champion to make the cut in the Masters. Hagestad, who had his clubs stolen 10 days earlier, shot 74 at Bel-Air and missed advancing by two strokes.

Thirteen players tied for the final eight spots for the 64-player match play field, including Braden Thornberry, and will play off Wednesday morning at 7:30 (PDT). Thornberry is No. 3 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and tied for fourth in the PGA Tour’s FedEx St. Jude Classic in June.

The post Oklahoma State’s Hayden Wood is medalist, sets 36-hole scoring record appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.