Trying to add a payment method? You can do this on the 
Derek Radley’s focus on international recruiting has Oregon in prime position for this week’s Pac-12 women’s golf championships.
EUGENE — Hsin-Yu (Cynthia) Lu began with an apology.
Oregon’s hosting the Pac-12 championships this week at Eugene Country Club and she didn’t have a ton of spare time. She had a workout in 30 minutes, and, well, her dad was going to have to hang around for the interview.
“He’s never been to Oregon,” she said last week as her father quietly walked around Oregon’s Hatfield-Dowlin Complex taking in the various trophies and exhibits and screens. “It surprises me how the U.S. supports their sports and athletes. There’s no facilities like this in Taiwan.”
Lu, the No. 1 player on the No. 2 Oregon women’s golf team, is a sophomore from Taiwan. She’s the No. 42 amateur in the world, and two weeks ago her dad’s whirlwind tour of America began with a trip out to the Augusta Women’s Amateur.
Lu was originally boarding a flight for Phoenix for the ASU Invitational when she got a surprise call saying that she had qualified. So she flew to Arizona, shot even-par over two rounds, then jetted out to Augusta to play against the world’s top amateur golfers the next week.
She shot a 73 and a 79 and missed the cut by three strokes.
“It’s really been my dream. Women never get a chance to play Augusta,” Lu said. “It’s perfect. It’s not even just the golf course. The cart paths, the sides of the course, the grass along the roads — it’s all like carpet. It’s just golf and trees and grass.”
The conditions could be quite different this week in Eugene, where local weather has featured rain, wind, sleet, hail, sun and drastic temperature swings over the last couple of weeks. “Duck Weather,” as fourth-year head coach Derek Radley likes to say. It should play into No. 2 Oregon’s favor: The Ducks prepare religiously in the elements, and the team’s quest for its first conference title comes at a time when the roster has never been stronger.
Oregon’s No. 2 ranking is a program best and the Ducks have finished in the top five of all nine tournaments they’ve played. Five players are ranked in the Pac-12’s top-20 scoring averages.
“Our team is really strong,” Tze-Han (Heather) Lin said. “Everyone’s a good player.”
Radley made sure of that. When he took over the program in 2018, the former Arizona assistant hadn’t even unpacked before jumping on a plane to Taiwan.
“My wife wasn’t really thrilled,” Radley said. “The furniture wasn’t even in the house yet, but when [Rob Mullens] hired me, he asked me what it was going to take to succeed here. And I said rolling up my sleeves and getting after it. And that starts on the recruiting trail.”
Radley signed Ching-Tzu Chen because of that trip, which paid dividends when Radley picked up on the recruitment of Lu. Partially thanks to Chen’s experience, Lu committed to Oregon sight unseen.
“I knew Oregon was a great place and that it would help me out in my career,” Lu said. “I didn’t think much about it.”
Asia’s top player in the 2020 class signed as the top-rated Oregon recruit ever. And after earning All-Pac-12 first team honors as a freshman, Lu is currently leading the Ducks with a 72.48 scoring average. Her 17-under win at the Mason Rudolph Championship in the fall shattered Oregon’s 54-hole record by five strokes.
“I was just enjoying the course and enjoying my management and being really confident in my shots,” she said. “I felt like I could do anything on that course.”
She’s also enjoying her college experience now that Covid restrictions aren’t so limiting. The Ducks recently saw Hamilton together as a team, which Lu said began with her American teammates giving the three Taiwanese players — Lin is also from Taiwan — a brief American history lesson.
There’s chemistry there, which certainly translates to the course.
“It’s pretty special,” Radley said. “Consistency’s a big word for us and I feel like any given week any one of our five could be the No. 1 man. And so, to have faith in themselves and each other is big for confidence moving forward.”
Lu wants to finish out this season strong at Oregon, then look through some potential tournaments to play this summer. Her dad may or may not tag along for all of them, but he’ll certainly remain a presence. Lu learned golf from him, sneaking in driving range sessions between his weekly rounds with clients. Once she picked it up seriously, he stopped playing to focus on teaching her.
Now, he spends his time traveling and touring the facilities that may hold his daughter’s trophies some day.
The first round of the Pac-12 women’s golf championships begins on Monday at Eugene Country Club.
— Tyson Alger
