Matt Adams, father of The Coast News reporter Cameron Adams, contributed reporting to this story.
CARLSBAD – Cash Winters, 15, waited in the middle of the fairway on the 10th hole at Omni La Costa’s North Course for the No. 1-ranked men’s amateur player.
Winters had left his Chandler, Arizona, home at 6 a.m. to make the drive to Carlsbad with his dad, an Auburn University alum, in order to watch their beloved Tigers in the championship match.
Tournament organizers of the NCAA Men’s Golf Championship encouraged spectators to follow players onto the fairways for a better view of the action.
The rising sophomore at Perry High School, who plays baseball, had been closely following Jackson Koivun, the top amateur men’s golfer. Winters was among a group of spectators huddling behind Koivun’s ball when the Tiger walked up to it. Marshalls politely asked the crowd to let the golfer through.
“Clear the way for the truth,” Winters said.
Koivun received the Fred Haskins Award as the top Division I men’s golfer, becoming the first two-time winner since Phil Mickelson.
The Auburn star then hit a fairway metal onto the front of the green.
“He’s a stick,” Winters said.
Koivun made a two-putt birdie to take the hole from Baylor Larrabee of UCLA. He would close out the match with Larrabee on 15.
“Come on,” Koivun exclaimed as he pumped his fist.
Tournament organizers then took Koivun by cart to the 18th green to await the celebration for what would be the second national championship for Auburn, nicknamed “War Eagle,” in the last three years.
Underdog Bruins
The championship match featured programs with wildly different pedigrees.
In addition to two-time Haskins Award winner Koivun, Auburn had three other golfers ranked in the top 125 of the amateur rankings. The Tigers came to the Omni La Costa ranked number one in the country and received the number one seed for the match play portion of the championship after shooting the lowest combined team score in stroke play.
In contrast, UCLA’s top-ranked player, Larrabee, is the 127th-ranked amateur and the school needed to outlast a tiebreaker to advance to the eight-team match play bracket.
The Southern California school did have a kind of home-field advantage and enjoyed strong fan support. Five Bruins fans could be seen around the perimeter of the course, shirtless and waving their tops in support of their team.
UCLA coach Armen Kirakossian said he was “overflowing with emotion” after his team qualified for match play after an up-and-down performance on June 1.
“The last three hours have been crazy,” Kirakossian said on Monday. “We had a huge cushion to make match play and then a colossal collapse coming down the stretch, but I’ll tell you what, I’ll give credit to our guys. They could have been big-time discouraged after that, but they weren’t. They came out fired up and ready.”
He credited Bruins assistant coach Mason Banger with getting the team in the right headspace to advance from the four-team tiebreaker. Though the Bruins’ improbable run began earlier in the season.
“It’s been a crazy ride for this last month,” Kirakossian said. “The guys just all came together. There was a moment where we were way under .500, in the middle of the spring. We were not playing great golf and were getting our butts kicked. The guys knew it. It’s on them, and they just got together and figured it out. It’s been amazing.”
Larrabee even outplayed Koivun by two strokes during the four rounds of stroke play, finishing in a tie for sixth, at 9-under par, in the individual championship.
“This year, he was so disciplined the entire time,” Kirakossian said of Larrabee. “He never got rattled. There were multiple times where I could see he was in a tough situation, a tough break, and he handled it like a champ. It was not shocking to me that he finished top 10 in this tournament.”
Koivun described his opponent, Larrabee, as “a great player.”
Other strong performances from the Bruins included Alex Papayoanou, who shot -3 on the first day, when the course played the toughest of the week by scoring average.
Freshman Josh Kim picked up the lone point for the Bruins in the championship match, carding four birdies against Auburn’s Josiah Gilbert. Overall, Kirakossian found much to be excited about with his team this year and moving forward.
“We do not get here this far without how much they cared for each other, for the program and for UCLA,” he said. “It’s a group of really gutty guys that have big hearts and are willing to compete and give it everything all the time.
“Our future is obviously really exciting when you have two freshmen like Josh Kim and Tyler Loree and sophomore Baylor Larrabee. We are excited about what we have moving forward. I know that they’re going to be really hungry to get themselves back in this position.”
Tournament overview
Preston Stout of Oklahoma State University stayed warm after finishing his fourth round at 14-under. Although he held the outright lead, the University of Alabama’s William Jennings was making a charge as an individual since his team did not qualify.
Jennings made up for a double bogie on 13 by birdieing 16 and 17, yet finished one stroke behind the Cowboy.
“I got hot and gave it a run but came up just short,” he said. “Overall, there’s a lot of good things to take away but it just sucks to come up short.”
Stout continued his strong play in Carlsbad, having shot under par in seven of eight individual rounds the last two years. He became the 10th Cowboy to win the individual title.
“Our program has a really deep history and whenever you get to etch your name in Oklahoma State history it is awesome,” he said. “I am proud of myself and glad I get to do that.”
Winning moment
The first match of the day was between UCLA’s Papayoanou and Auburn’s Logan Reilly.
Their match was all square heading into the short par-4 15th hole, with UCLA up in one match and within striking distance in two others.
At 371 yards on the scorecard, the hole was just outside of drivable, leading both players to hit less than driver. They both hit wedges into the green, but Papayoanou was left with the longer and flatter of the two putts.
He poured in the birdie, leaving Reilly a tricky downhiller to tie the hole, which he did to keep the match all-square.
Then on the par-3 16th, Papayoanou hit his approach to within 10 feet on the same line as Reilly had. Though that “teach” didn’t help, the duo matched pars, remaining tied.
After they both recorded classic “Hogan” pars on 17, they headed to the final hole knotted up.
Papayoanou backed out from the address of his tee ball on 18 and seemed to ponder switching from driver to fairway wood on the 614-yard par-5 closer.
Ultimately, he stuck with the driver and snapped the tee ball into the pond left of the fairway. A rules official directed Papayoanou to a drop from the 10th hole of the other course at Omni La Costa.
After punching back onto the correct golf course and coming up short with his fourth, needing a chip-in to halve the match.
Reilly would keep his ball dry on the hole and card a par. Koivun and Jake Albert had already closed out their matches by this point.
Papayoanou showed deft touch with his wedges throughout the match, saving a par on 9 with a high-degree-of-difficulty flop shot and another beauty to stone dead on 11.
He hit a chip shot that would count as a fine effort under any other circumstances on 18, but because it stayed out of the cup, it gave Auburn the winning point.
“It means the world and you can’t dream of anything better, especially with the feeling of all the guys and the Auburn family behind you and supporting you,” Reilly said. “It’s unlike anything that I’ve ever done before. This is the craziest feeling, and I can’t wait to bring home the trophy to the Plains.”
