May 25, 2017
Baylor's NCAA Championships Tournament Notes 
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation
Cooper Dossey was all of 18 years old when he won his first collegiate golf tournament at The All-American Intercollegiate back in February.
"I think he subscribes to the old theory that the golf ball doesn't know how old you are," Baylor coach Mike McGraw said of Dossey, a first-team All-Big 12 pick who leads the team and ranks 40th nationally with a 70.97-stroke average. "He plays with a lot of energy and competes as well as any player I've coached in 31 years.
"You throw in a little talent in there and a little bit of confidence, and next thing you know he's challenging to win golf tournaments. That makes him one of the better freshmen in the country, which makes us one of the better teams. And we're real excited about that, for sure."
Baylor and Dossey proved that last week at the NCAA Stanford Regional, when the Bears tied the host Stanford team for the regional title and Dossey shot 9-under-par 201 to finish as the individual runner-up.
"We knew we were one of the best teams in the country," Dossey said. "To go in there and do what we did was really big for us going into this week to kind of regain that confidence we had the whole spring."
Ranked fifth nationally, Baylor is making its second straight appearance at the NCAA National Championship and is paired with Stanford and LSU in Friday afternoon's first wave off the No. 1 tee box for the opening round at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill.
"Their confidence is still riding high," McGraw said of the Bears, who have won four tournaments and posted three other top-three finishes. "They've been doing a lot of things that have never been done before at Baylor, so why not continue that and do something really special at the National Championship? So, I'm looking forward to that, and I know the kids believe it can happen."
Dossey certainly does. While the goal is to get through stroke play and make into the match play quarterfinals, "we go in expecting to win," he said.
"As much as we do want to win, we can't be solely focused on that," he said. "It's always the next shot. That's all we can control is the next shot we hit. But yeah, I think we can win. This is a really good opportunity for us to take it home."
At Vandergrift High School in Austin, Dossey was part of three consecutive Class 5A state championships and won medalist honors as a senior after finishing third as a sophomore and runner-up the next year. He was the top-ranked prospect in Texas, No. 8 nationally and was named the 2016 NHSCA national player of the year.
"We knew Cooper was going to be really good because he had had such a good junior career," senior Hunter Shattuck said. "I don't want to say we didn't think he would be this good, but we didn't think he was going to be this good. He's one of the best, if not the best freshman in the country, and I sure wouldn't trade him for any freshman."
The thing is, though, Dossey had committed to Texas A&M as a sophomore and was still expecting to sign with the Aggies until his younger brother, Luke, came on a recruiting visit to Baylor and brought back the design plans for a new golf practice facility.
"I've always bled green and gold. I'm like fifth-generation on my mom's side and fourth-generation on my dad's," he said. "But back then, I felt like A&M was a better fit for me. When Coach McGraw came to Baylor, I was really excited for the program. . . . Throughout that whole year, I wanted to come on a visit. So, when I saw the plans, I asked (Texas A&M coach J.T. Higgins) about coming here on an official visit just to see how it is. I came, and I loved everything about it. It was probably the hardest decision I've ever made, because of all the hard calls I had to make, but Coach McGraw has been everything and more. This year has really shown me that I made the right choice."
The year didn't start off the best for him, with a pair of finishes outside the top 25 at the Fighting Illini Invitational and Maui Jim Intercollegiate. But, he finished the fall on a good note with top-10 finishes at both the Jerry Pate and Royal Oaks Intercollegiate, where he shot 5-under-par 66 in the second round.
And then, he started the spring by winning medalist honors at The All-American by three shots at 10-under 2016, carding two more rounds in the 60s.
"What's cool is I've had individual success this year, and that matters to me, but not as much as the team success," he said. "And we got the win that week in Houston, too. That meant more to me, because we beat the No. 1 team in the nation (Vanderbilt). I love competing and I love this sport, but in college it's a team sport just as much as individual. What's been cool for me is to be a part of a group of guys that have broken records every week. Reaching No. 1 (as a team) is a dream come true."
Bothered by a nagging wrist injury, Cooper finished tied for 33rd at The Maxwell and 16th at the Big 12 Championship. But, he got things back on track last week with three straight rounds of 68 or better and a second-place finish at the Stanford Regional to help the Bears advance to the National Championship.
"I think I have surprised myself," he said. "I've always kind of struggled with confidence and believing that I can compete with the best. . . . I was just kind of coming in hoping to do the best I could to help the team. But, this spring has been one for the books for me. And I know it's not over yet. As much as I want to think about the past and how well I played - and I will do that - I have to move forward this week."
Dossey is part of a Baylor lineup that hasn't changed all year. For the first time in his 31 years of coaching, McGraw went with the same lineup, with Dossey joining Shattuck, junior Matthew Perrine and sophomores Braden Bailey and Garrett May.
Bailey, Shattuck and Perrine were all on last year's team that finished 27th out of 30 teams at the NCAA National Championship in Eugene, Ore.
"It's really cool going into it knowing that we have a chance," Shattuck said. "I think last year we were kind of just happy to be there. We wanted to win, but we knew we were going to have to play great golf. This year, we almost feel like we're supposed to be here and we're supposed to get to match play. It's just really cool feeling the energy level of the whole team, with the expect of going in there and winning a national championship. That's really cool to be a part of that."
The 30-team field will be trimmed to 15 after the first three rounds of stroke play and down to eight for Tuesday's match play quarterfinals.
"Obviously, you'd like to win the stroke play portion. I've had teams before that did that and it's a big honor," McGraw said. "At least it shows momentum going into match play. Just do everything we can to play well as we can. We can't control everything else."
Live scoring is available at www.golfstat.com, with the Golf Channel providing 30 hours of coverage over the course of the NCAA Championships, beginning with the final round of stroke play at 3-7 p.m. CDT Monday.
WACO, Texas -- The No. 5-ranked Baylor men's golf team plays heads to Sugar Grove, Ill., to play in the 2017 NCAA Championships, which runs Friday through Wednesday at Rich Harvest Farms.
The Bears earned the seventh Championships berth in program history by winning their first-ever NCAA Regional title. BU tied host Stanford atop the leaderboard to earn one of five Championships berths awarded at the Stanford Regional. Baylor will play in the Championships in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1966-67.
Baylor enters the Championships with top-four finishes in nine of its last 10 events, including three titles and two second-place finishes in seven spring tournaments. Head coach Mike McGraw is in his third season at Baylor and his 20th season as a Division I coach. He's led teams to the NCAA Championships in 18 of his 20 seasons and has finished among the top five teams at the Championships 10 times, including three national title and three runner-up finishes.
The BU lineup consists of sophomore Braden Bailey, junior Matthew Perrine, freshman Cooper Dossey, senior Hunter Shattuck and sophomore Garrett May. The same five players have been in the lineup all season, which is the first time in head coach Mike McGraw's Division I career that he's used the same lineup all season. Freshman Colin Kober is also on the trip as an alternate, and he is eligible to substitute into the lineup if the Bears advance to match play.
The stroke play portion of the NCAA Championships is scheduled for 18 holes per day from Friday through Monday. The 30-team field will be trimmed to the top 15 teams after Sunday's third round, and those 15 teams will play a fourth round of stroke play on Monday to determine the top eight teams to advance to match play.
Teams advancing to match play will be seeded one through eight based on the standings from stroke play, and Tuesday's quarterfinals will feature matchups of the first place team vs. eighth place, second vs. seventh, third vs. sixth and fourth vs. fifth. The winning teams advance to semifinals matches later in the day on Tuesday, and the title match is scheduled for Wednesday.
Golf Channel is scheduled to provide 30 hours of coverage over the course of the NCAA Championships, beginning Monday from 3-7 p.m. CT. Match play quarterfinals will be televised Tuesday from 10 a.m. through 12:30 p.m., and semifinals will be shown from 3-7 p.m. later in the day. Wednesday's national championship match will be televised from 3-7 p.m.
Thirty teams qualified for the NCAA Championships by placing among the top five teams at six different Regionals. The field consists of eight of the nation's top-nine ranked teams and 20 of the top 25. Baylor is the No. 5 seed and is joined by fellow Big 12 Conference members Oklahoma State (No. 3 seed), Texas (No. 10 seed), Oklahoma (No. 13 seed) and Iowa State (No. 29 seed).
Baylor is paired with Stanford and LSU for each of the first two rounds of stroke play. Those groups will tee off from the first hole at 12:27 p.m. CT Friday, with May up first for Baylor. He'll be followed in 11-minute intervals by Shattuck, Dossey, Perrine and Bailey, respectively. Those same groups begin Saturday's second round from the 10th tee at 7:07 a.m. Sunday's and Monday's pairings are determined by standings, with teams at the top of the leaderboard teeing off last.
The Baylor women's golf team competed at the Championships earlier this week. The Lady Bears finished seventh in stroke play to advance to match play for the second time in the last three seasons, where they fell to No. 1-ranked Stanford, 3-2. Baylor is one of 14 schools to have both men's and women's golf teams qualify for the 2017 NCAA Championships.
For live scoring information throughout the tournament, visit www.golfstat.com. Follow @BaylorMGolf on Twitter and Facebook for updates throughout the season.
NCAA Championships Seeds (Golfstat ranking)
1. USC (1)
2. Oklahoma State (3)
3. Vanderbilt (4)
4. Stanford (2)
5. Baylor (5)
6. LSU (6)
7. Illinois (8)
8. Oregon (9)
9. Kent State (11)
10. Texas (14)
11. Clemson (15)
12. UNLV (16)
13. Oklahoma (17)
14. Virginia (18)
15. UCF (47)
16. Duke (19)
17. Auburn (20)
18. Mississippi (22)
19. Pepperdine (25)
20. Arizona State (23)
21. Florida State (24)
22. North Carolina (28)
23. Alabama (31)
24. Lipscomb (32)
25. Kennesaw State (36)
26. Purdue (37)
27. Jacksonville (39)
28. New Mexico (42)
29. Iowa State (44)
30. Penn State (48)
