Oklahoma State University Athletics
Cowboy Golf Set For Big 12 Championship
April 25, 2004 | Cowboy Golf
Oklahoma State's men's golf team will look to capture its first conference title since the 2000 season this week when it travels to Hutchinson, Kan., for the Big 12 Championship at the 6, 596-yard, par-70 Prairie Dunes Country Club. The Cowboys have finished as the event's runner-up the past two seasons, but enter play as the favorite after garnering 119 points in the coaches poll, edging out second-place Texas by six points. The Cowboys and Longhorns will begin play with third-seeded Oklahoma and will tee off at 8:50 a.m. on the No. 10 tee with the first of two rounds on Monday before Tuesday's final round.
OSU AT THE CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP
In 57 seasons, the Cowboys have captured an astounding 48 conference championships, including a league-high three titles in the seven-year history of the Big 12, and produced 41 individual champions. OSU has produced the last two individual medalists, with Anders Hultman winning in a playoff in 2002 and Hunter Mahan bringing home top honors last season. Overall, the Cowboys have produced four Big 12 individual champions with Leif Westerberg emerging victorious in 1997 and Charles Howell winning in 2000. OSU's string of three consecutive seasons without a conference title is the longest in the program's history with the only other time the Cowboys gone more than one season without a league title being a two-year stretch from 1956-57. OSU is 14-2 against Big 12 foes this season.
BIG 12 REWIND ... A YEAR AGO
For the second consecutive season, the Cowboys finished as the event's runner-up to Texas. OSU came in four shots off the pace of the Longhorns 894 team score. In the league's first venture away from Prairie Dunes, OSU's Hunter Mahan shattered the league record for margin of victory. The two-time Big 12 Player of the Year finished as the only competitor under par with a 208, two-under, total at formidable Southern Hills in Tulsa on his way to a 13-shot victory.
