Men's Golf, Gerard Tie for 7th at GC of Georgia Invitational

Sunday, October 20

Atlanta, Ga.

All Day

North Carolina

Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational Day Three

October 20, 2019 | Men's Golf

GC of Georgia Rd 3

Hitt Leads UNC in Final Round with a 70

By: Steve Kirschner

Austin Hitt and Ryan Burnett shot 70 and 71, respectively, in the final round and Ryan Gerard tied for seventh to lead the University of North Carolina to a seventh-place finish Sunday at the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational.

The 14-team field featured 12 of the top 30 teams in the country in Golfstat's rankings, including four top-10 teams and seven in the top 20. (Carolina is No. 13).

The Tar Heels shot 2-under-286 in round three to finish the event at 10 over. Duke won the team title at 2 under, two strokes better than Pepperdine. Texas A&M was third (+1), Wake Forest was fourth (+4), UCLA was fifth (+8), defending NCAA champion Stanford was sixth (+9) and the Tar Heels tied for seventh with Clemson and Tennessee at plus 10. Top-ranked Georgia Tech was 10^th, a stroke behind UNC, Clemson and Tennessee.

Gerard shot 69-73-72 to finish 2-under-214. It was his third top-10 finish in five starts this fall. UCLA's Eddy Lai, who shot a 4-under-68 today, and Texas A&M's William Paysse shared medalist honors at 7 under.

Gerard was one of four players in the field to shoot a tournament-best 7 under on the par 5s over the three rounds.

Hitt tied for 24^th at 3-over-219 (72-77-70), Burnett tied for 35^th at 5-over-221 (72-78-71), Austin Greaser tied for 49^th at 8-over-224 (75-76-73) and Dougie Ergood tied for 58^th at 11-over-227 (72-77-78).

This was Carolina's fifth and final event of the fall schedule.

"The thing that stood out to me this weekend was the championship feel the tournament had with all the scores being so tight," says UNC head coach Andrew DiBitetto. "We tied for seventh but were only 12 shots from the win. It's another reminder that every shot counts for all five players over the course of all 54 holes. Our biggest issue this weekend was the second round. We typically thrive in bad weather conditions, but unfortunately that didn't happen yesterday.

"Overall, it's been a solid start to the season, highlighted by Ryan Burnett who has a win, a second-place finish and a third, as well as Ryan Gerard who has three top-seven finishes in five events. However, there are plenty of areas where we can improve from now until the end of the season in the spring."