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Playing Through
Men’s and women’s golf teams both card solid results as they rolled into postseason
BY BOB SHERWIN • FOR GO HUSKIES MAGAZINE
University of Washington men’s golfers will be among the last Huskies to carry the purple and gold colors into the school’s final Pac-12 Conference competition. Ever.
With all the school’s athletic teams set to compete in the Big Ten next season, the Pac-12 will be on the brink of disappearing — after 65 years of existence.
It’ll be the golfers who will close out the season and the conference. The Huskies earned their fourth straight NCAA Tournament bid as the No. 2 seed to the Rancho Santa Fe (Calif.) 54-hole Regional at The Farms Golf Club, played May 13-15. Visit GoHuskies.com for news and results of this tournament.
It is one of six regionals across the country. Five teams from each of the regionals will then advance to the 30-team NCAA Championship, also taking place at The Farms on May 24-29.
The 10th-ranked Huskies featured four seniors this season: Petr Hruby from Pilsen, Czech Republic; Taehoon Song from Osan, South Korea; Teddy Lin from New Taipei City, Taiwan; and Bo Peng from Nanjing, China. Hruby earned his first Pac-12 first-team selection, Song was named to the second team and Lin was honorable mention. Also, Finn Koelle was named to the All-Freshman team, giving the Huskies four Pac-12 honorees, tying for most in UW history.
Hruby, a Haskins Award and Ben Hogan Award nominee, had seven top 10 finishes this season with 14 rounds in the 60s. Song won the Husky In vitational — shooting a season-low 63 in the first round — while Lin placed among the top 20 golfers in eight of 11 competitions.
Two years ago, Hruby, Peng, Song and Lin all had a hand in Washington’s conference title at Aldarra GC in Sammamish.
While the school will bid goodbye to those players from far-away places, next year’s roster will feature two players from Ireland, one each from China, Germany, South Africa, and The Netherlands, as well as two from Washington and one from California.
“That’s reflective of Washington in general. It’s an international university and that makes for an easy transition for the guys,” seventh-year coach Alan Murray said. “It’s like having a little community here from their home countries.”
As for the UW women, Camille Boyd was a force throughout the season. The Pac-12 first-team selection earned the season highlight on March 5, when she took medalist honors at the Juli Inkster Invitational in Fairfax, Calif. It was her second victory at the event in three years.
The senior from Yorba Linda, Calif., also had two other top finishes. She was second, out of 95 players, at the Dr. Donnis Thompson Invitational in Lihue, Hawaii, in mid-March, shooting three rounds in the 60s. The Huskies had their best showing of the year, tied for second behind Arizona State. Washington’s team score of 847, which was 17-under-par, was the third lowest to par in program history.
Boyd also was fifth, out of 50 players, at the Blessings Collegiate Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark. In eight tournaments this season, Boyd led her team or was tied six times.
Boyd finished 23rd at the Pac-12 Championship, played at Palouse Ridge in April. Her teammates, Jamie Hsieh, Vivian Lu and Stefanie Deng, each shot 3-under 69 in the final round to move Washington from eighth to fifth on the final day.
The Huskies then made their 29th appearance in the NCAA Championships the second week in May. Washington was the host team for the 12-team regional competition at Tumble Creek GC in Cle Elum. Boyd, Lu, Deng, Hsieh and Carmen Lim represented the Huskies and Mads Smith served as substitute.
The UW finished in seventh place at the Cle Elum Regional, two spots out from advancing to the National Championships in Carlsbad, Calif., May 17-22. Visit GoHuskies.com for the final results and season stats.
