Overstreet makes lasting impression as a freshman golfer for Razorbacks

FAYETTEVILLE - In the rich history of University of Arkansas golf, only three have matched or exceeded the recent runner-up NCAA Tournament finish achieved by Mason Overstreet.

On the women’s side, Gaby Lopez as a senior in 2015 matched the NCAA Tournament second-place that Overstreet achieved at the NCAA Men’s Tournament in Sugar Grove, Ill.

Stacy Lewis, as a junior in 2007 won the NCAA Women’s Tournament.

R.H. Sikes as a senior won his NCAA Men’s Tournament in 1963.

As a true freshman finishing just four strokes behind individual champion Braden Thornberry of Ole Miss, Overstreet becomes by far the youngest Razorback in class individually to fare so well in college golf’s major championship.

That can be a springboard to greatness, Lewis said. She certainly achieved it professionally off an outstanding, though not NCAA championship, senior year to having a run as the greatest current player in the LPGA and returned to Arkansas still among the LPGA’s best at the Walmart Northwest Arkansas Championship at The Pinnacle in Rogers.

It also, she presumed, could be too much too soon if great expectations puts the preparation cart before the horse.

“You just hope as a freshman that the expectations don't go through the roof,” Lewis said. “I think it's a great opportunity for him, kind of to use that as a springboard, but to kinda keep expectations down and hopefully he can have his team there the next time.”

Coach Brad McMakin’s Razorbacks, returning their top five for 2018 with only one senior-to-be Alvaro Ortiz, didn’t advance as a full team at the NCAA Regional in Baton Rouge, La. while Overstreet alone advanced individually finishing sixth coming off shooting a 66 in the final round of the SEC Tournament.

Wishing to meet Lewis personally, Overstreet appreciated her comments about hoping the whole team would accompany him to the 2018 NCAA Tournament (“It was weird not having the guys around,” Overstreet said) and keeping expectations in line and fervently wishing to follow her past of winning the big one in 2019 as a college junior.

“It would be a pretty cool thing if I could do the same thing and win as a junior,” Overstreet said. “Because the NCAA would be here at The Blessings, our home course. That would be pretty cool.”

As for dealing with the possibility of expectations mushrooming out of control from too much too soon, Overstreet seems addressing it already.

“I was talking to my brother the other day and it was like, ‘That was great and all but I can’t let that one tournament stick with me too long,” Overstreet said. “I have to keep getting better and keep practicing every day and just work upon that.”

From opening his fall golf college career at the famed Pebble Beach course that annually hosted the Crosby in California, the small town boy from Kingfisher, Okla., population 4,000, has kept his eyes wide open and his perspective in check.

“That was a little surreal for me,” Overstreet said of opening at Pebble Beach which opens the Razorbacks’ 2017 fall season, too. “A smalltown kid from Oklahoma walking off the fourth tee and seeing the ocean, that was pretty cool. It was a good thing we had a practice round because I didn’t have many good shots in the practice round. I was just looking at the ocean.”

But no matter the course, golf is golf and that’s Overstreet’s lifetime love.

“I actually grew up in Laverne, Okla. which was even smaller (than Kingfisher),” Overstreet said. “It had like 900 people in it. We lived a few hundred yards from the golf course. So I was like 7 or 8 and just drove the golf cart down the road and played golf all day. I just love it. Honestly I never get tired of playing.”

Or learning. Whether it’s school, a 4.0 student in finance, McMakin said, or lifting weights, which he never did before but already has arms like a linebacker, Overstreet attacks everything avidly and as instructed,’ McMakin said.

“He has the faith and trust in us,” Overstreet said.

And the experience, from being an all-round athlete at Kingfisher in football an top-light basketball shooting guard, to be coached harder than your average golfer, McMakin said.

“He’s country strong,” McMakin said in body and mind. “He has been yelled at. He hasn’t been coddled. I am harder on him probably than anybody because he takes it great. With golf you have to be careful with some of these kids’ egos, You don’t have to be careful with him. He takes it in the right way.”

Overstreet has all the tools to do everything right. McMakin marvels at Overstreet’s power, (“He can hit a driver, 7-irons and 6-irons to a 575yard hole,” McMakin said.

McMakin said, and marvels even more at Overstreet’s putting.

“He putts like an upper level touring pro,” McMakin said. “When he was in high school Ping put him on their putting system on a computer and they thought the machine was broken he was so good. So they had him do it again. It was top numbers better than any touring pros they had seen.”

The combination of power, touch and country background naturally conjures John Daly in Arkansas.

But says, McMakin, it’s John Daly with a 4-point minus the demons that Daly has battled.

“We foresee a future for him perhaps being the greatest Razorback ever and then doing great things on the PGA tour,” McMakin said. “He’s our John Daly with his life together.”

(Nate Allen covers the Razorbacks for the News Times.)