Oklahoma Sooner sports: Reflecting on a championship year in multiple disciplines
By Chip Rouse
Sooners surprise the college golf world, winning their 2nd NCAA Men’s Golf Championship
The 2017 Oklahoma men’s golf team finished fifth in the Big 12 Championship, 17 shots back of the conference champions, the Texas Longhorns. Oklahoma State, Kansas and Texas Tech also placed ahead of the Sooners in the 72-hole stroke-play tournament held at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan., of the top 100 golf tracks in the United States.
That may seem like a rather pedestrian finish, until you factor in that five Big 12 schools were ranked in the top 15 in the country, according to the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings at the time the conference championship was played in late April.
As the 12th-ranked team in the country, the Sooners qualified for NCAA Regional play and were sent to compete in the Stanford Regional. Behind the play of OU sophomore Brad Dalke, who was the individual medalist in the 54-hole regional tournament with a 12-under-par three-day score of 198, the Sooners finished fourth as a team at the Stanford Regional, one of the five teams to advance out of that regional to the NCAA Championship finals.
The championship field at Harvest Rich Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill., consisted of 30 teams competing in a 72-hole, stroke-play tournament. The top 15 teams after 54 holes would play a final 18-hole round to determine the final eight teams that would compete in a match-play format to determine the 2017 NCAA team champion.
The Sooners were tied for second place after 54 holes and finished in outright possession of the No. 2 spot after 72 holes, which advanced them to match play as one of the final eight teams still standing.
OU drew a familiar foe in Baylor in the opening round of match play. The Sooners, seeded No. 2 in the match-play portion of the championship, came from behind to defeat Baylor 3-2 and followed that up with a 3-1-1 win that same afternoon over No. 3 Illinois.
That left just one remaining hurdle for Oklahoma, defending national champion Oregon, which beat out Texas a year ago for the national championship.
Get by the Ducks, who advanced to the final match by way of victories over Oklahoma State and Vanderbilt, both by scores of 3-2.
The Sooners played superlative golf in the championship match, losing just one match to the defending national champions in finishing out a 3-1-1 victory and earning their second NCAA championship in men’s golf.
Oklahoma began its NCAA Tournament run as the 13th-ranked team, but finished it out in grand style as the nation’s No. 1 team in men’s golf.