First team out of regionals, Washington State plays on at college golf’s NIT

For the second straight season, Washington State missed out on advancing to an NCAA Division I men’s golf regional.

But for the second straight season, the Cougars will still be competing in May.

Washington State is among 10 teams that will tee it up in the second annual National Golf Invitational, college golf’s version of the NIT in college basketball. The NGI, a 54-hole stroke-play tournament and the brainchild of Golfweek’s Lance Ringler, begins Friday at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona.

“The resources that have been given and the importance that has been place on college golf in the last decade, that’s created a need for more teams to have the opportunity to play postseason golf,” Ringler said. “The NGI is that outlet. We have mid-majors that finished second at conference, teams that beat their schedules handily but didn’t achieve the rankings to be noticed, teams that barely missed making regionals.”

The Cougars fall under the latter. The first team left out of the NCAA postseason on Selection Wednesday, Washington State ended the conference tournament season ranked No. 67 in the national rankings, a spot behind Colorado State, which secured the final at-large berth. The season prior, when Golfstat still was the NCAA’s official ranking, the Cougars settled just a few spots below the magic number.

According to Ringler, who ran his Golfweek/Sagarin team rankings behind the scenes this season, the Sagarins, which closely mirrored Golfstat most years, had Washington State comfortably in as an at-large.

“I know the committee did everything they could to make the best decisions, and I respect what they did,” Cougars coach Dustin White. “I think our overall body of work was pretty good, and unfortunately it just got away from us at the very end, and we’ll just do better next time.”

Washington State finished ninth or better in each of its first eight events this season, a stretch that featured four top-3s and put the Cougars at No. 50 in Mark Broadie’s new ranking in early March.

However, the squad’s final three results looked like this: 21st, 14th, and 11th at the Pac-12 Championship, where Washington State was forced to play the final 36 holes of the 72-hole, 6-count-5 event without its No. 2 player, senior Preston Bebich, who has battled a back injury all spring.

In their final Pac-12s before becoming an affiliate member of the West Coast Conference for golf, the Cougars shot 98 over, 61 shots behind champion Arizona State.

And when the 81 regional participants were announced on Golf Channel, White and his players didn’t hear their names called – again.

“It stung,” White said. “I’ve seen how hard these guys have worked, and we’ve played some really good golf most of the year, so to miss out by one – I told the guys, look, it’s like missing the cut by one at the next level; the guy missing the cut by one versus the guy that misses by 10 is a heckuva lot closer to where he wants to be. These guys are pounding the door and doing the right things, and it’s only going to be a matter of time.

“The guys are at peace now. But I told them, don’t dwell on this, but do everything you can next time around to avoid having this feeling again.”

Washington State tied for sixth at its NGI debut last year, though it also finished just 10 shots back of champion Texas State. Three teams that competed in that inaugural year – Arkansas State, Stetson and Ball State – went on to qualify for an NCAA regional this season. The Cougars, even with losing four seniors, hope to do the same next season.

For now, though, they’ll look to show everyone that they belonged in regionals this year.

“They were frustrated, they were irritated, and they want to go down to Phoenix and prove a point and say, this is really who we are,” White said. “These guys still want to go out and compete, and they want to put an exclamation point on their season.”