EUGENE, Ore. – Oregon men’s golf came in at No. 17 in the first College Golf Rankings which were published on Wednesday. The rankings are determined by a point system being used by the NCAA for the first time this season.
After playing four tournaments in the fall season, Oregon’s average points mark is 49.25, while the national leader North Carolina holds an average of 109.09. Nate Stember is the top-ranked Duck at No. 53 – ninth in the Pac-12 – with a 28.52 average in the new algorithm. The fifth-year senior earned 63.40 points for his third-place finish at the Ben Hogan Collegiate Invitational in October, the most of any UO individual at a tournament this fall. Greg Solhaug joins Stember in the top 100 with an average of 23.76, good for 77th in the rankings.
The Ducks’ top tournament of the fall season was also the Ben Hogan Collegiate Invitational according to the new algorithm, which granted UO 89.02 points for its performance. The Ducks finished four shots off of the lead and were fourth on the leaderboard behind No. 2 North Carolina, No. 1 Vanderbilt, and No. 6 Arizona State.
The new College Golf Rankings aim to provide a fair, accurate and transparent ranking system that reflects the desires and priorities of the NCAA membership. Teams and individuals are awarded points at each tournament based on numerous factors, primarily using the Strokes Gained formula. National rankings are then determined by taking the average number of points a team or individual has recorded.
A full explanation of the new college ranking system has been provided by Clippd and professor Mark Broadie – who pioneered the Strokes Gained statistic – and is available here.
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