Still, a combination of back-nine jitters and tricky winds blowing from a new direction turned the tournament into a knockdown, drag-out fight for the remaining 2½ hours. Flores, who had been three under after nine holes, shot 45 on the back to limp in with a 78. Freshman Philip Francis and senior Craig Leslie carded 76s (UCLA dropped junior Lucas Lee's 80) as the Bruins shot a collective 18 over on the back nine and for the final round.
Yet USC struggled just as much down the stretch (the Trojans best round was Tom Glissmeyer's 74), allowing defending champion Stanford, five strokes back of UCLA starting the day, to make a bid at becoming the first repeat winner since Houston in 1984-85. The Cardinal finished more than an hour before their Pac-10 foes, posting a 43-over total (led by Sihwan Kim's 71, the only sub-par score in the fourth round), then waited by the 18th green to see how far the leaders might fall back. By the time Chappell was on the 18th tee, UCLA was only one shot up on Stanford and two on USC.
Playing in the final threesome with Chappell, USC freshman Tim Sluiter (whose stellar first three days kept the Trojans' title hopes alive) carded a double bogey on No. 17, making a 3 on No. 18 necessary to tie Stanford and get in a three-team playoff had Chappell bogeyed the final hole as well. The freshman from The Netherlands' birdie putt hung on the right lip of the cup but wouldn't fall, leaving him with a final-round 81 and the Trojans in third place.
For all the talent the Bruins possessed, that they would be victorious in the season finale—their fifth tournament title—seemed unlikely after the turnover of the previous summer. O.D. Vincent, who had rebuilt the Bruin program in his five years in L.A., stepped down as coach to take the job at Duke. Freeman, with just five years of coaching under his belt after starting in September 2002 as a non-paid volunteer at NAIA's Oklahoma City University, and with just one year's experience as an assistant to Vincent, had the support of the players to inherit the Bruins' top job.
While keeping Vincent's custom of wearing a button-down shirt and tie at tournaments, Freeman made a few of his own marks. Chief among them was to instill in the team the idea of setting daily goals and holding themselves accountable.
Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of Freeman's logic was Chappell, who had two wins and seven top-five finishes in 11 starts, posting a 71.03 stroke average while finishing outside the top 12 only once. "I think this week has opened his eyes to [realize] he's really at a level a lot of guys don't get to," Freeman said.
"The feeling I have right now is better than anything I could ever imagine," said Chappell. "To win individually is great, but it becomes even more special because the team also won. All season long we've always been there to pick each other up and that's what championship teams do."
For all the red numbers Chappell posted in his final season as a collegian, however, it is a bogey that will be the fondest memory of the best—and worst—year of his life.
- Text Size:
- Small Text
- Medium Text
- Large Text
