Cole Rueck follows his shot on the 18th hole of the Oregon Open Invitational Thursday afternoon at The Ridge Course at Eagle Crest Resort in Redmond. 

REDMOND — It all lined up for Isaac Buerger to have a stellar showing at three-day, 54-hole Oregon Open Invitational this week.

The tournament was held at Ridge Course at Eagle Crest Resort, where he has played an untold number of rounds growing up. It is the same course where his father, Ron, has been the director of golf for more than two decades.

He would certainly undercount if he were to guess how many rounds of golf he’s played since before he was 10 years old. But for reference, since returning from Weber State this spring, he has already tallied more than 100 rounds of golf at Ridge Course.

More prepared than anyone in the field to play three rounds of 18 holes at the Oregon Open Invitational, Buerger’s start to the tournament proved that the supposed home course advantage might have been a curse.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself to start the week,” said Buerger, whose father, Ron, is the director of golf at Ridge Course. “I thought, ‘this is my home course, you have to go out and perform well.’ I realized you can’t play good golf when you try to do that.”

Through the first nine holes on Tuesday, Buerger had as many bogeys as birdies (one each), on a course where, as he said, birdies were possible on every hole.

Buerger, who won Class 5A state individual titles in 2017 and 2019 while golfing for Ridgeview High and is fresh off a fourth-place finish at the Big Sky Conference Championships, got into a groove in the back nine of the first day, where he did not have a single bogey. Still, he was tied for 13th place.

After an identical score of 69 on Wednesday, Buerger moved into a five-way tie for seventh place.

“I had nothing to lose going into today,” Buerger said. “I was chasing the leaders. They had all the pressure.”

The final day it all came together. He birdied nine holes, including four straight between the ninth and 12th holes. After 18 holes on the final day, he shot a 66, which was tied for the lowest score on the final round.

He finished 12 under par (69-69-66—204) to tie for the amateur title and finish second overall.

“It was a slow start to the week. I didn’t really play well on Tuesday, but I just battled,” said Buerger who now golfs for Weber State in Utah. “But I knew there were a ton of birdie chances, I just stayed patient to get myself back into it. Coming into today I thought I’d have a good chance if I shot 65.”

A good week

Since Buerger wasn’t in the final grouping, he wouldn’t know where he would land on the leaderboard while the last groupings — the three golfers with the lowest scores entering the final day — were finishing up.

Shane Prante, a PGA professional from The Home Course in DuPont, Washington, and Cole Rueck, an amateur from the Corvallis Golf Club, were the two golfers whose live scores were being tracked from the clubhouse.

With a two-stroke lead, he knew catching Prante was not in the cards, but he was tied with Rueck when he entered the final hole.

He watched Prante par the hole to ultimately win the Oregon Open, then watched as Rueck’s roughly 10-foot birdie putt, which would have won the amateur title and secure a second-place finish, came up just short.

Prante finished 14 under par despite, admittedly, not having his best day on the final day. His score (67-65-70—202) gave him the win in the Oregon Open and a cash prize of $10,000.

“I hadn’t been playing well coming into this tournament,” Prante said. “I had been too aggressive off the tee, not trusting my reads. I played really well the first two days — today was a little more of a grind. You are always going to have one day where it is a grind — I put myself in position to still come away with it.”

Rueck, who golfs at Boise State, did not expect to find himself in the top group of three golfers on the final day, finished with an identical score to Buerger finishing 12 under par (64-69-71-204)

“I didn’t have these high expectations,” Rueck said. “I’m really happy with how I played. This is by far the most under par I have been in a tournament, and first time shooting in the 60s in back-to-back rounds in a tournament. It was a good week all around. I’m proud of how I stayed aggressive and didn’t play defensive.”