OU, OSU, OCU miss on national championship bids, but next year looms

from 2022 Golf Oklahoma June/July

by Golf Oklahoma Magazine

The Final Word: Pat Wheeler

Eugenio Chacarra Logan McAllister Ryan Hybl

Reagan Chaney

Full speed ahead

National championships remains the goal for state teams

by ken macleod

With first-team All-America seniors Chris Gotterup and Logan McAllister off to the professional ranks, at least two spots are up for grabs in the 2022-23 Oklahoma lineup.

Those are two gaping voids, but national coach of the year Ryan Hybl does have talent coming in and waiting in the wings.

Also who knows what collegiate stud will want to join via the transfer portal, as Gotterup did last year and Jonathan Brightwell did the year before.

Two prime candidates from the existing roster to join Drew Goodman, Patrick Welch and Stephen Campbell Jr. in the lineup would be rising junior Ben Lorenz and sophomore Jaxon Dowell.

“For both those guys, I would say it’s their time,” Hybl said. “Ben, it’s time for him to really establish himself. His game is ready. He just has to let his mind get there. For Jaxon, there’s a reason he traveled with us all over the place and was my sub at regionals. Just like Ben, it’s time for him to establish himself.”

Ben’s older brother Blake Lorenz graduated and transferred to Wichita State to fulfill his eligibility. Incoming are three freshmen who could well factor in to the mix, including Jake Hopper of Norman, Jase Summy of Keller, Texas, and Matthew Troutman of Louisville, Ky. Summy is one of the higher-ranked juniors Hybl has landed, and could be pushing for playing time right away.

What the Sooners will need, Hybl said, is for any of the newcomers or returning players to become as fearless about shooting low scores as McAllister and Gotterup were. McAllister leaves with the lowest scoring average in school history at 70.98 and four career victories.

“Certain players are wired to shoot low scores and Logan was that way,” Hybl said. ‘They get comfortable when they are 5 or 6 under and just want to take it lower. We need some of our other guys to be comfortable shooting lower scores.”

OU will certainly be back in contention and it seems the same over in Stillwater. First-team Oklahoma State All-American Eugenio Chacarra made the somewhat surprising announcement that he was forgoing his PGA Tour University status and coming back, meaning the Cowboys return every player on their roster except Aman Gupta – that’s why coach Alan Bratton signed only one player in the fall.

John Wild of Glen Ellyn, Ill., is the new Cowboy, but will likely have to wait in a long line. Besides Chacarra, Bo Jin, Brian Stark and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, all started at the NCAA Championship. Looking for their own legacy will be veterans Jonas Baumgarter, Leo Oyo, Rayhan Thomas, Hazen Newman, Tiger Christensen and Jordan Wilson, who each have quality experience and will be hungry for more.

“We had 12 guys on the roster last year but every one of them got to start in at least five tournaments,” Bratton said. “They know that we are going to surround each of them with really good players but invest in their development and build a schedule where they have a chance to move up. And they have some really big summers in front of them.”

The abrupt end to the second-ranked Cowboys’ season was painful, but Bratton said that did not undo all that was accomplished in what was otherwise a very good year.

“It is an abrupt end,” Bratton said. “Just like in other sports. You go through the 72 holes and then you start over again with high hopes of winning the national championship. You go into your match and several hours later, boom, your hope is gone. For both us and OU, we had really good seasons but we didn’t get it done. There was disappointment in the week, but not in the season.”

THE STATE OF THINGS

Like the Sooner and Cowboy men, the Oklahoma City University women’s team fully expected to win the national championship this spring. In finishing second to British Columbia, the Stars ran into another NAIA power that had not lost to a fellow NAIA member all season. But with fourtime All-America Natalie Gough returning to join the super duo of Maddi Kamas and Reagan Chaney, a national title should be well within their grasp in 2023.

Also nearly reeling in a title was Oklahoma Christian in NCAA Division II. After having an only mildly successful regular season, OC raced to the men’s title match of the DII national championship before falling to Lee 4-1 in the match-play finals.

The Oral Roberts men’s team improved when former Sooner Lane Wallace transferred in at the semester break, promptly won a tournament and was named Summit League Newcomer of the Year. He has another year of eligibility.

Oklahoma State’s women’s team may have had the best chance to win a national title before leading scorers Isabella Fierro and Caley McGinty entered the transfer portal and were dismissed from the team. The Cowgirls still qualified for the NCAA Championship and coach Greg Robertson will regroup around Big 12 Golfer of the Year Maddison Hinson-Tolchard and Lianna Bailey.

The University of Tulsa women’s program will get a huge boost in the fall from freshmen Jenni Roller of Tulsa, whose mother Maggie played on a national championship team there in 1989. She’ll join Lilly Thomas and Lovisa Gunnar in trying to raise that program back to national prominence.