Tar Heels Finish 15th at NCAA Championship

Monday, May 28

Stillwater, Okla.

All Day

North Carolina

NCAA Championship

May 28, 2018 | Men's Golf

NCAA Final Stroke Results

Highest Finish in 15 Years

By: Steve Kirschner

The University of North Carolina men's golf team posted its highest national finish in 15 years after placing 15^th after the fourth and final round of stroke play at the 2018 NCAA Championship at Karsten Creek Golf Club.

The Tar Heels shot 17-over-par 305 on Sunday. UNC came into the fourth round in 15^th place and needed to make up at least 10 shots on the field to advance to match play in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.

UNC struggled at the start, however, playing its first two holes in four over par and making the turn at seven over.

Austin Hitt led UNC with a 73 to finish tied for 69th. Seniors William Register and Ben Griffin played their final collegiate rounds in 75 and 76, respectively, and tied for 41st. Freshman Ryan Gerard made his championship debut and birdied two of the first three holes, but finished with an 81. Joshua Martin, who entered the final round tied for 14^th after a 72-69-73 start, closed with an 85 and tied for 52^nd.

Carolina was one of eight teams (out of 15) that shot at least 12 over par in the final round, including five that were at least 15 over (Duke +18, UNC +17, Clemson +16, Vanderbilt +16 and Arkansas +15).

No team finished the 72-hole event under par. Oklahoma State earned the No. 1 seed entering match play after shooting even par 1152. Duke is second (+8) and is followed by Texas Tech (+9), Oklahoma (+11), Auburn (+15), Alabama (+16), Texas (+16) and Texas A&M (+17).

Augusta's Broc Everett birdied the first playoff hole to defeat Brandon Mancheno of Auburn to win the individual national championship. They were tied at 7 under after 72 holes, edging U.S. Amateur champion Doug Ghim of Texas by one stroke.

"It's a difficult and demanding course on any day, then you throw in the fact it was the final round of stroke play in a national championship, the wind kicked up, and for the first time all week the greens were pretty firm and had plenty of pace, you combine all of that and it led to some higher scores for a lot of good teams including ours," says UNC head coach Andrew DiBitetto.

"Obviously we knew we started the day 10 back from the cut line, and we had to make a pretty significant move, so our guys were aggressive in some spots. It's okay to do that on this course, but you have to execute your shots and when were aggressive we didn't do that and it led to some bigger numbers."

Carolina's 15^th-place finish is the school's highest since finishing ninth, also at Karsten Creek, in 2003. It is UNC's 30^th top-15 finish in the NCAA Championship.

"We had a heck of a year," says DiBitetto. "Of course we are disappointed right now, but we won two tournaments, including one on the west coast, we set a number of team records, individual records, several players had career best rounds and finishes, Austin Hitt had the lowest score ever by a Tar Heel in an NCAA regional, and we had our best finish at nationals in 15 years. This group really came together as a team to help establish a culture that we have now and will continue to build upon."