dubbed the Battle of the Cowboys<\/a>, which pitted Stout\u2019s 2025 NCAA title-winning Cowboys with the victorious 2018 Oklahoma State squad that put six players on the PGA Tour. Stout\u2019s opponent that mid-April day at Oak Tree National in Edmond, Oklahoma, was Viktor Hovland, a seven-time PGA Tour winner and three-time European Ryder Cupper.<\/p>\nAnd Stout absolutely dominated Hovland, going 5 up through seven holes on the Norwegian star before closing out his match, 4 and 3.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a lot of fun,\u201d Stout said. \u201cThat was cool to kind of kick his ass a little bit. It doesn\u2019t happen often. I feel like it definitely gave me a boost. We were leaving for Big 12s right after that, and I felt like I hadn\u2019t been playing well leading up to that day, and then obviously played really well and was able to beat one of the better players in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Oklahoma State head coach Alan Bratton: \u201cPreston was there to be an ass-kicker and he was. It was very impressive golf to see. Viktor was in contention at Hilton Head right before that, and while he didn\u2019t strike it like he can, but he also didn\u2019t play that bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stout went from scalping Hovland to winning his third straight Big 12 individual title, his fourth win of the spring and this one by a whopping seven shots, which helped him become a finalist for both the Haskins and Hogan awards, the latter of which went to Auburn\u2019s Jackson Koivun last Monday. Koivun has won six times this spring while fellow Hogan finalist Ben James of Virginia is on track to become just the fifth four-time first-team GCAA All-American in NCAA history.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s motivated him to have those guys to chase,\u201d Bratton said. \u201cThe years that both of those guys have had are very impressive, but his is as well. Most years, that probably would\u2019ve won an award or two.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stout, who opened the NCAA Championship in 1-over 73, has fired 12 under over the last 36 holes. Stout\u2019s third-round 65 tied the program\u2019s second-best score at nationals, behind only Charles Howell\u2019s 63 in 2000. Stout started Sunday with an eagle at the par-5 10th hole, where he hit 3-wood from 260 yards to 12 feet and rolled in the putt. He\u2019s 11 under entering Monday\u2019s final round, after which the winner will also earn a likely invitation into next year\u2019s Masters Tournament.<\/p>\n
Arizona\u2019s Filip Jakubcik, Alabama\u2019s William Jennings and Vanderbilt\u2019s Will Hartman are tied for second, a shot behind Stout, while Koivun is five behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone knows what\u2019s a stake,\u201d Stout said. \u201cIt definitely feels like a major for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CARLSBAD, Calif. \u2013 Considering who Preston Stout beat a few weeks ago, battling his peers at the collegiate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-677344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}