CARLSBAD, California –– It’s almost like a transition day here at the OMNI La Costa Resort & Spa on Wednesday.
As Stanford and Southern Cal, women’s golf’s No. 1 and No. 2 teams, meet in the championship match (prime time college golf in the Eastern and Central time zones on The Golf Channel), a crew will follow soon behind turning the 6,300-yard layout for the women into something that should be in the realm of the 7,480 yards the course played at a year ago for the men.
The par 3s last year were 190, 203, 245 and 162 (the 16th over the water as far back as possible) and the par 5s at 622 (across at least one road/cart path) at No. 2 to 557 on the famed par 5 18th hole.
When I talked to LSU men’s head coach Jake Amos Tuesday evening here, he was anticipating getting it going with his Tigers on Friday afternoon.
And why shouldn’t he? The Tigers come in ranked seventh in the nation in the NCAA/Scoreboard rankings in a year in which 7-of-the-top-10 seeds for the event are from the SEC. He also remembers the “regional going to regional” theory in which his Tigers couldn’t get through last year as the one seed. That left a bitter taste in the team and coach’s minds and they were determined to take care of that this year in Marana, Arizona.
“It’s always in the back of your mind what happened the year before and missing out,” the second-year LSU men’s coach said. “That’s the thing with regionals, you can get sent anywhere. We’re not baseball or tennis or softball, where if you are good, you’re hosting at home. We have to get sent wherever, no matter how good we are, and that’s always the risk. It’s by far the most stressful week of the year.”
The most stressful week of the year and they got sent to a place where they had to shoot 30-under par to advance as the third of five teams. It’s also the one tournament where anywhere in the top five is perfect, but things have to work to shoot a number like that.
“We had a nice regional, with the teams that went there, but you are going to the desert and altitude, so how do your guys handle those changing elements?” Amos said. “Luckily, we’re a very experienced group and they handled it great.”
Coach Amos very much realizes what it means to bring LSU back to the national championship event.
“This is where we need to be like every sport LSU needs to be playing the national championship event. I think they’ve made that pretty evident with the people they’ve hired, and even when they were hiring me, that’s what they wanted to do. I took East Tennessee State four years in a row. It’s tough getting here. You always appreciated it … It’s always a privilege to be at a national championship, but after last year, you never take it for granted.
“But now that we are here it’s fully on to, we are supposed to be here and we’re supposed to win it.”
If anything, the sluggish performance by LSU for really the first time all season in the SEC Championship event in Georgia, may have been the best wakeup call.
“It was a massive wake-up call,” said Amos. “I actually personally blame it on myself. Arnie (Sveinsson) was injured the week before, and we had a little bit too much focus on that. I think we tried to rush him back. I didn’t appreciate how deep we were as a squad. It was a bit of distraction, but it was a massive wake-up call for me and the guys. We’re too good to be sloppy.
“One of our goals this year was to be the best at everything that requires zero talent, and we didn’t do that that week. So it got us back to our fundamentals of what we believe in and it was the perfect thing that happened. Our message to the guys was that the only team not disappointed was Ole Miss. Everyone else is disappointed whether you are disappointed early in the week or end of the week.”
How good is this LSU team? Their record speaks for itself. One tournament outside a top four finish with three wins. That one tournament was the SECs, finishing 12, which they followed up with a 30-under performance in the regional.
This team has all five players ranked in the top 151 in the nation in college golf. We’ll talk about them individually in my Thursday pre-opening round story here on LSUsports.net, but when the coach and the players are excited to be here and ready to play and not just happy to be here, that is a big difference. This coach is excited to be here, that’s for sure.
“I am excited because this is the goal at the end of the year,” said Coach Amos. “The first thing I ask every team meeting is who thinks we can win a national championship? And I’ve said it every single meeting I’ve ever had as a head coach, and the guys believe it. I believe it.”
And the future looks pretty bright as well for the Tigers and the coach sees it and believes it.
“The fun thing is we only lose one guy out of this team. We’ve built it where we can make a little run if we get it going, so yeah, I’m excited to see what they do.”
BEFORE WE GO
I have to say the quality of golf on the women’s side was really pretty special. That LSU was just one shot off the number to make a top-15 cut for the sixth year in a row was a very good run for women’s team. The one-shot situation Garrett Runion talked about was too cruel for the Tigers at the end, but it brought an epic five-hole playoff over the course of some 13 hours of time that will be remembered by a lot of family and friends of graduated senior Taylor Riley for a long time.
The chip-in at 17 for par to stay alive, the win at 17 the next morning to advance and in the final round she birdied 17. The fitting birdie on her final hole of her career with Golf Channel friend Jim Gallagher, Jr., calling it put a wonderful wrap on a four-year career that included three starts in national championships.
Gallagher, whose wife and daughter both played at LSU, with his Coach O “Geaux Tigers” impression after the birdie was great indeed. It’s on our LSU women’s golf social if you haven’t seen it.
Speaking of family, hard to believe it’s been the mid-1990s since Taylor’s mom (then Michelle Louviere) played for LSU as part of the “Three Amigas.” Father Chris had success on the PGA Tour, made the Ryder Cup team, had two top four major finishes and was golf coach at San Diego for several years. Great to see them on the course all week here at La Costa.
So one tournament concludes on this day and later in the evening the course will transform for a Thursday practice round for 30 men’s teams hopefully “excited” to be here. Thanks as always for “Geauxing Lowe” at the “Village by the Sea.” Time to get some more steps in at La Costa.