Men's Golf Opens At Fighting Irish Classic

Sunday, September 4

Notre Dame, Ind. (Warren G.C.)

All Day

North Carolina

Fighting Irish Classic Day One

September 3, 2022 | Men's Golf

By: Steve Kirschner

The Tar Heel men's golf team begins the 2022-23 season Sept. 4-5 at the Fighting Irish Classic at the Warren Golf Course in Notre Dame, Ind.

Carolina has advanced to match play and tied for fifth in each of the previous two NCAA Championships. UNC returns four starters and adds former Pepperdine All-America, national champion and two-time West Coast Conference Player of the Year Dylan Menante (Carlsbad, Calif.).

UNC will be paired with the host Irish and the University of Florida in Sunday's first two rounds.

Carolina will be without senior Austin Greaser (Vandalia, Ohio), who is one of three players representing the United States in Paris in the 2022 World Amateur Team Championship.

UNC's season-debut lineup includes sophomore David Ford (Peachtree Corners, Ga.), Menante, fifth-year senior Ryan Burnett, junior Peter Fountain (Raleigh, N.C.) and senior Kenan Poole (Raleigh, N.C.).

Senior George McNeely (Carmel, Calif.) will compete at Notre Dame as an individual entry.

Ford earned third-team All-America and first-team All-ACC honors as a freshman last season, tied for fifth at the NCAA Championship and was the ACC Freshman of the Year. He won the Southern Amateur in the summer and is ranked No. 16 in the current (Aug. 31) World Amateur Golf Rankings.

Menante started for Pepperdine in 2021 when the Waves won the NCAA title and earned a point in Pepperdine's quarterfinal round match play win over UNC in the 2022 NCAA Championship. He defended his title in record-setting fashion this summer at the Northeast Amateur and played for Team USA in the Palmer Cup for the second straight year. He is No. 7 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.

Burnett is playing in a fifth collegiate season as result of the extra year of eligibility the NCAA gave student-athletes in 2020-21 due to the pandemic. He is third in UNC career scoring average (71.54) and earned his second All-America honor last season after tying for second in the NCAA Championship. He was one of four players to finish in a tie for first after four rounds of stroke play at even-par 280, but lost in a playoff when Vanderbilt's Gordon Sargent made a birdie on the first extra hole.

Fountain was a first-team All-America as a freshman in 2021 and is Carolina's all-time stroke average leader at 71.18. He won the ACC individual title in 2021 and lost his bid to defend his championship in a playoff with Clemson's Jacob Bridgeman in 2022.

Poole earned a spot as one of Carolina's five starters for the third time in his career. He shot a 67 in the final round of the Williams Cup at Eagle Point last year as an individual entry and won the North Carolina Amateur in the summer.

This is the third time in the last five seasons UNC is playing in the Fighting Irish Classic. The Tar Heels finished third in the fall of 2018 and were runner-up a year later.

In 2018, Ryan Gerard set Carolina's 18-hole scoring record with a final-round 61 en route to a second-place finish. Burnett tied for seventh that year as a freshman at 10-under 203 (68-67-68) then tied for second in the fall of 2019 at 6-under 207 (71-69-67).