A Pacific-10 duel was the match of the day at the NCAA Championship golf tournament Friday. It was a duel that, fittingly enough, came down to a head-to-head battle between the conference co-players of the year.
Friday marked the beginning of the match-play phase of the tournament, and in the first quarterfinal to tee off at The Honors Course, fourth-seeded Oregon took on No. 5 Washington.
After splitting the first four matches, a spot in the semifinals came down to Oregon's Eugene Wong and Washington's Nick Taylor.
"It was definitely a classic duel," Wong said. "It went all the way to the last hole. That's as classic as you can get."
With their teammates and fans looking on, as well as fellow Pac-10 team UCLA, Wong took a 1-up lead on the 10th hole and was able to hold on to it all the way through No. 18.
"It was just a dogfight," Oregon coach Casey Martin said. "No one was up by more than one all day. It was just classic golf back and forth. That was PGA-level golf being played out there."
Thunder rumbled throughout the course as Wong and Taylor played their final two holes. On No. 18, with a light rain falling, Taylor was unable to make a 20-foot birdie putt that would have forced a playoff. Wong, who lagged a putt of nearly 40 feet close to the hole with his third shot, knocked in a testy 3-footer to halve the hole and send the Ducks into the semis.
"Coach came up to me on the 16th green and said, 'The team's in your hands right now,' and I'm like, 'Oh, boy,'" Wong said. "From there I just tried to keep myself relaxed and just play one shot at a time."
Moments after Wong's putt fell, the horn sounded to halt play due to bad weather in the area. Play resumed after a break of 56 minutes.
Soon after, top seed Oklahoma State easily dispatched Stanford 4-1 to set up a heavyweight semifinal today between the Cowboys and the Ducks. The other semifinal pits No. 6 Augusta State against No. 2 Florida State.
The Pac-10 sent nine of its teams to NCAA regionals, and eight qualified for the Honors. Three moved on to match play, but only the Ducks still have a shot at a national championship.
Oregon will be facing a very confident Oklahoma State squad. The Cowboys won the Big 12 championship and the Southeast Regional and were the top team at the end of stroke play Thursday with a 14-under-par team score.
"We've got a lot of confidence and everybody's playing really good," said Oklahoma State's Sean Einhaus, who won five of his first seven holes Friday against Stanford's Joseph Bramlett.
At last year's NCAA Championship, the Cowboys also were the dominant team in stroke play, but they lost to Georgia in the first round of match play.
Another upset never appeared likely Friday as Oklahoma State took command early against the Cardinal, who won a playoff Friday morning to claim the final spot in the quarterfinals.
Oklahoma State and Oregon are scheduled to begin play at 9 a.m., followed by Florida State and Augusta State at 9:45.