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University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: Andy Mead/YCJ
Burnett A Mainstay In Men's Golf's Growth As National Force
May 8, 2023 | Men's Golf
After 72 holes over four days at the Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., four of the best collegiate players in the country were tied for the lead for the individual title at the 2022 NCAA Men's Golf Championships.
The University of North Carolina's five-man lineup included a freshman who was the nation's No. 1 junior; a first-team All-America from the previous season; a 2021 U.S. Amateur finalist; and a fifth-year senior who would soon be playing on the PGA Tour.
Yet there was Ryan Burnett, the senior from Lafayette, Calif., whose career at UNC had seen both ends of the competitive spectrum, tied for the lead and playing for a national championship.
Vanderbilt freshman Gordon Sargent, who soon became the No. 1-ranked amateur in the world, won the playoff and the NCAA title with a birdie on the first extra hole. For Burnett, the second-place finish was the best by a Tar Heel in the national championship since John Inman won in 1984.
Burnett's journey in collegiate golf had been a roller coaster ride with numerous highs and lows. In his first two seasons with the Tar Heels, he was one of the best players on the team. As a freshman in 2018-19 he shot 67-63 over the final 36 holes to tie for second at the NCAA Stanford Regional and he made the 54-hole cut at the NCAA Championship; the following season, he set the school record for single-season scoring at 70.21 and earned second-team All-America honors from Golfweek.
In the first event of his sophomore season, the Turning Stone Tiger Invitational in Verona, N.Y., Burnett won for the first time as a Tar Heel and posted the second-best 54-hole score in UNC history with an 18-under 198. In eight tournaments that season, which ended prematurely due to the pandemic, he collected a victory, two runner-ups and a third-place finish.
On Tuesday, March 10, 2020, two days before much of the sports world shut its doors, Burnett had an opportunity to capture his second victory of the season and was tied for the lead heading into the final hole of the General Hackler Championship in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
"I took dead aim at a front pin with water short of the hole," says Burnett. "I hit it and it caught some wind, landed on the bank and rolled back in the water to lose. We didn't know Covid was going to cancel the rest of the season and that was my last tournament for six months."
It was an abrupt and sour ending to what had promised to be an outstanding season.
Burnett says when the pandemic hit, "Everything took a 180. I fell out of my routine. I stopped working as hard as things got uprooted for everyone. I struggled for a while but my teammates did the opposite."
When collegiate golf resumed play in January 2021, Burnett wasn't even part of Carolina's starting lineup at the Camp Creek Seminole Invitational. In fact, he wasn't in the starting five in three of UNC's first five tournaments. Burnett experienced a mixed bag of results in his junior season, including ties for fourth at The Prestige and fifth at the 2021 ACC Championship.
The pandemic's effects ultimately lingered into Burnett's senior season.
"Coming out of Covid I struggled with my game a lot," he says. "I struggled a lot mentally, especially into the fall of my senior year which was probably the low point. I couldn't find it and got to the point where I didn't want to work to find it and dig myself out. You keep failing, failing, failing."
By his senior season, Burnett had dropped to fourth or fifth in the lineup – understandable considering the Tar Heels were also starting All-Americas Ryan Gerard, Austin Greaser, Peter Fountain and David Ford – but admittedly a step back from his first two lofty seasons.
His best finish in the fall of 2021 was 13th place at The Williams Cup, where he competed as an individual entry, and he averaged 47th-place finishes in his other three tournaments.
The affable Californian from just outside of Oakland credits Carolina head coach Andrew DiBitetto and associate head coach Matt Clark for helping him get back on track.
"My coaches had to help me dig out of it and find that joy in the game and joy in trying to get better separate from the results," says Burnett. "Eventually I had some success in the spring which culminated in starting to play well at the end of the year."
"There were a lot of tough conversations during that stretch but very honest ones," says DiBitetto. "He is unfiltered, so you know where he is always which is a great thing. You are trying to find ways to connect to all your guys. With him, there were a lot of hard and honest conversations. The whole purpose was to try to help and support him to make him better.
Last spring, Burnett finished 10th at both the Valspar Collegiate Invitational and the ACC Championship and was rounding into form heading into the NCAA Championship.
Propelled by a week of stellar ball-striking, Burnett entered the final 18 holes at NCAAs tied for fifth at even par, four shots off Sargent's lead.
With Grayhawk's greens continuing to firm up under the desert sun, Burnett knew even par was going to be a good score in the final round. His goal was to stick to his game plan he diligently followed all week, shoot a low number and let the rest take care of itself.
"It is such a hard golf course that if you try to force the issue, bad things will happen," says Burnett. "I had a game plan for every hole and I wasn't going to deviate from that plan. That wasn't going to change if I was four back, two back, one back, or had a two-shot lead."
After making the turn in 1-under 34, Burnett asked the coaches how the team was performing. Burnett received good news as the Tar Heels had a healthy double-digit cushion on the eighth and final qualifying spot to advance to match play.
"That was a weight off the shoulders, so my focus then was trying to win the individual title," says Burnett.
Heading into the 295-yard par 4 17th at 1-over, Burnett blistered a 3 wood onto the green 15 feet away from the cup. He left his eagle putt short and tapped in for birdie to move back to level par.
He reached the 72nd hole, which played as the most difficult hole for the week.
"No. 18 was my least favorite tee shot on the course. It was my ninth time playing it in competition and I had yet to hit the fairway."
Burnett's tee shot on the 520-yard par 4 found the left fairway bunker, which forced him to lay up. At the time, Burnett thought he had to make his third shot from the fairway, but he hit his approach 12 feet past the hole and buried the par putt to post the clubhouse lead at even-par 280.
Even then, a lot still needed to happen for Burnett to win. Texas's Parker Coody bogeyed his final hole to fall back to even par. Burnett and Coody were warming up next to each other on the range awaiting a potential playoff as the final group of Oklahoma's Chris Gotterup, Oklahoma State's Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra and Sargent approached the 18th hole all at even par.
Burnett peered over the pond from the range as Lopez-Chacarra and Sargent made par to force a four-man playoff for the individual title.
In the playoff, Burnett finally hit the fairway on 18 but tugged his wedge a little bit on the approach. After missing his birdie putt, Burnett watched as Sargent rolled in a five-foot birdie to win the title.
"It was a cool experience," Burnett says of competing in the playoff. "I didn't feel as nervous as I thought I was going to and I performed well. Heck, I wish I played 18 all week the way I played it in the playoff, but Gordon just happened to make a birdie."
DiBitetto credits Burnett's near victory to his re-discovered work ethic.
"He's back to being one of the hardest workers, being exceptionally prepared, detail oriented, taking care of his body and he's having success," says the 2022 ACC Coach of the Year. "In our sport, it doesn't happen right away but going back to January 2022, he's easily been one of the hardest workers on our team. You don't see results overnight, but he got better last spring and found himself in a playoff with a chance to win a national championship."
Burnett took advantage of the NCAA-allowed extra year of eligibility due to Covid and returned for his fifth season with the Tar Heels. Heading into NCAA regionals, which begin May 15, Burnett is averaging 70.97 strokes per round, second best on the team and the seventh lowest in UNC history. His average national ranking by Golfstat and Sagarin/Golfweek is No. 40, which is 10th-best in the ACC and should earn him All-ACC honors for the first time in his career when the team is announced May 11 (no All-ACC was selected in 2020 due to the pandemic).
He has four top-10 finishes in 10 starts, including his second collegiate victory, when he led wire-to-wire with rounds of 68-71-72 for a 5-under 211 and a two-shot victory at The Calusa Cup in Naples, Florida.
"It was funny because at the beginning of the week, we (the team) were talking about how firm the greens were and it was a lot like Grayhawk," says Burnett. "There were a lot of holes where birdie wasn't out there."
So, Burnett again clung to his game plan. "I wanted to be the guy that had the most 15 footers for birdie at the end of the week. I didn't try to force anything and made a lot of pars. I had some putts go in the first round and built up a little lead."
Burnett's patience boded well as he withstood a charge from Vanderbilt's William Moll. After losing the lead at the turn in the final round, Burnett posted a bogey-free 1-under 35 on the back nine that led to both medalist honors and a team win, the second-ranked Tar Heels' fifth of the season.
Burnett has seen and been an integral part of the growth of the UNC program. His career success has mirrored that of the team with its ups and downs. However, Burnett has been a constant in Carolina's upward trajectory in joining the nation's elite programs.
"It is hard to believe this is the same team I walked into five years ago," says Burnett. "It is so different in how we show up to tournaments. Back then when we were playing in a big tournament, it was awesome if we could finish fourth or fifth against a strong field. Now, we show up every week expecting to win and most people at the tournament expect us to have a shot at winning as well."
Burnett credits this change to the team's talent and work ethic.
"Nobody wants to lose to anyone which is a healthy thing, but we are also very happy for each other when one of our teammates beats us," says Burnett. "That competition of wanting to beat your teammates is important and seeing how good they are. Anytime you can tee it up against three of the top players in the world every week is great."
(All five of Carolina's starters are ranked in the top 100 in the World Amateur Rankings – Ford is No. 4, Greaser is No. 6, Menante is No. 15, Burnett is No. 44 and Fountain is No. 98).
After reaching the quarterfinals and finishing fifth at the NCAA Championships the last two seasons, the Tar Heels have their sights even higher.
"We have the talent to win a national championship and that is everyone's goal," says Burnett.
Burnett will turn professional following the NCAA Championship, which, if the Tar Heels qualify for out of regional play, is scheduled for May 26-31. Currently No. 18 in the PGA Tour University Rankings, Burnett hopes to secure status on the Korn Ferry Tour for this summer.
However Carolina finishes this season, DiBitetto believes Burnett will continue to be a valuable teammate on and off the course.
"Another reason why he's been so crucial and significant to our success is his personality," says DiBitetto. "He does a good job of keeping things light-hearted and keeping guys loose in critical and stressful situations. As we turn the page to the postseason, the intensity starts to amplify and it's amazing having a guy like Ryan there to keep everyone laughing, loose and joking.
"All of us, coaches and players, see a high ceiling for Burnie."
The University of North Carolina's five-man lineup included a freshman who was the nation's No. 1 junior; a first-team All-America from the previous season; a 2021 U.S. Amateur finalist; and a fifth-year senior who would soon be playing on the PGA Tour.
Yet there was Ryan Burnett, the senior from Lafayette, Calif., whose career at UNC had seen both ends of the competitive spectrum, tied for the lead and playing for a national championship.
Vanderbilt freshman Gordon Sargent, who soon became the No. 1-ranked amateur in the world, won the playoff and the NCAA title with a birdie on the first extra hole. For Burnett, the second-place finish was the best by a Tar Heel in the national championship since John Inman won in 1984.
Burnett's journey in collegiate golf had been a roller coaster ride with numerous highs and lows. In his first two seasons with the Tar Heels, he was one of the best players on the team. As a freshman in 2018-19 he shot 67-63 over the final 36 holes to tie for second at the NCAA Stanford Regional and he made the 54-hole cut at the NCAA Championship; the following season, he set the school record for single-season scoring at 70.21 and earned second-team All-America honors from Golfweek.
In the first event of his sophomore season, the Turning Stone Tiger Invitational in Verona, N.Y., Burnett won for the first time as a Tar Heel and posted the second-best 54-hole score in UNC history with an 18-under 198. In eight tournaments that season, which ended prematurely due to the pandemic, he collected a victory, two runner-ups and a third-place finish.
On Tuesday, March 10, 2020, two days before much of the sports world shut its doors, Burnett had an opportunity to capture his second victory of the season and was tied for the lead heading into the final hole of the General Hackler Championship in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
"I took dead aim at a front pin with water short of the hole," says Burnett. "I hit it and it caught some wind, landed on the bank and rolled back in the water to lose. We didn't know Covid was going to cancel the rest of the season and that was my last tournament for six months."
It was an abrupt and sour ending to what had promised to be an outstanding season.
Burnett says when the pandemic hit, "Everything took a 180. I fell out of my routine. I stopped working as hard as things got uprooted for everyone. I struggled for a while but my teammates did the opposite."
When collegiate golf resumed play in January 2021, Burnett wasn't even part of Carolina's starting lineup at the Camp Creek Seminole Invitational. In fact, he wasn't in the starting five in three of UNC's first five tournaments. Burnett experienced a mixed bag of results in his junior season, including ties for fourth at The Prestige and fifth at the 2021 ACC Championship.
The pandemic's effects ultimately lingered into Burnett's senior season.
"Coming out of Covid I struggled with my game a lot," he says. "I struggled a lot mentally, especially into the fall of my senior year which was probably the low point. I couldn't find it and got to the point where I didn't want to work to find it and dig myself out. You keep failing, failing, failing."
By his senior season, Burnett had dropped to fourth or fifth in the lineup – understandable considering the Tar Heels were also starting All-Americas Ryan Gerard, Austin Greaser, Peter Fountain and David Ford – but admittedly a step back from his first two lofty seasons.
His best finish in the fall of 2021 was 13th place at The Williams Cup, where he competed as an individual entry, and he averaged 47th-place finishes in his other three tournaments.
The affable Californian from just outside of Oakland credits Carolina head coach Andrew DiBitetto and associate head coach Matt Clark for helping him get back on track.
"My coaches had to help me dig out of it and find that joy in the game and joy in trying to get better separate from the results," says Burnett. "Eventually I had some success in the spring which culminated in starting to play well at the end of the year."
"There were a lot of tough conversations during that stretch but very honest ones," says DiBitetto. "He is unfiltered, so you know where he is always which is a great thing. You are trying to find ways to connect to all your guys. With him, there were a lot of hard and honest conversations. The whole purpose was to try to help and support him to make him better.
Last spring, Burnett finished 10th at both the Valspar Collegiate Invitational and the ACC Championship and was rounding into form heading into the NCAA Championship.
Propelled by a week of stellar ball-striking, Burnett entered the final 18 holes at NCAAs tied for fifth at even par, four shots off Sargent's lead.
With Grayhawk's greens continuing to firm up under the desert sun, Burnett knew even par was going to be a good score in the final round. His goal was to stick to his game plan he diligently followed all week, shoot a low number and let the rest take care of itself.
"It is such a hard golf course that if you try to force the issue, bad things will happen," says Burnett. "I had a game plan for every hole and I wasn't going to deviate from that plan. That wasn't going to change if I was four back, two back, one back, or had a two-shot lead."
After making the turn in 1-under 34, Burnett asked the coaches how the team was performing. Burnett received good news as the Tar Heels had a healthy double-digit cushion on the eighth and final qualifying spot to advance to match play.
"That was a weight off the shoulders, so my focus then was trying to win the individual title," says Burnett.
Heading into the 295-yard par 4 17th at 1-over, Burnett blistered a 3 wood onto the green 15 feet away from the cup. He left his eagle putt short and tapped in for birdie to move back to level par.
He reached the 72nd hole, which played as the most difficult hole for the week.
"No. 18 was my least favorite tee shot on the course. It was my ninth time playing it in competition and I had yet to hit the fairway."
Burnett's tee shot on the 520-yard par 4 found the left fairway bunker, which forced him to lay up. At the time, Burnett thought he had to make his third shot from the fairway, but he hit his approach 12 feet past the hole and buried the par putt to post the clubhouse lead at even-par 280.
Even then, a lot still needed to happen for Burnett to win. Texas's Parker Coody bogeyed his final hole to fall back to even par. Burnett and Coody were warming up next to each other on the range awaiting a potential playoff as the final group of Oklahoma's Chris Gotterup, Oklahoma State's Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra and Sargent approached the 18th hole all at even par.
Burnett peered over the pond from the range as Lopez-Chacarra and Sargent made par to force a four-man playoff for the individual title.
In the playoff, Burnett finally hit the fairway on 18 but tugged his wedge a little bit on the approach. After missing his birdie putt, Burnett watched as Sargent rolled in a five-foot birdie to win the title.
"It was a cool experience," Burnett says of competing in the playoff. "I didn't feel as nervous as I thought I was going to and I performed well. Heck, I wish I played 18 all week the way I played it in the playoff, but Gordon just happened to make a birdie."
DiBitetto credits Burnett's near victory to his re-discovered work ethic.
"He's back to being one of the hardest workers, being exceptionally prepared, detail oriented, taking care of his body and he's having success," says the 2022 ACC Coach of the Year. "In our sport, it doesn't happen right away but going back to January 2022, he's easily been one of the hardest workers on our team. You don't see results overnight, but he got better last spring and found himself in a playoff with a chance to win a national championship."
Burnett took advantage of the NCAA-allowed extra year of eligibility due to Covid and returned for his fifth season with the Tar Heels. Heading into NCAA regionals, which begin May 15, Burnett is averaging 70.97 strokes per round, second best on the team and the seventh lowest in UNC history. His average national ranking by Golfstat and Sagarin/Golfweek is No. 40, which is 10th-best in the ACC and should earn him All-ACC honors for the first time in his career when the team is announced May 11 (no All-ACC was selected in 2020 due to the pandemic).
He has four top-10 finishes in 10 starts, including his second collegiate victory, when he led wire-to-wire with rounds of 68-71-72 for a 5-under 211 and a two-shot victory at The Calusa Cup in Naples, Florida.
"It was funny because at the beginning of the week, we (the team) were talking about how firm the greens were and it was a lot like Grayhawk," says Burnett. "There were a lot of holes where birdie wasn't out there."
So, Burnett again clung to his game plan. "I wanted to be the guy that had the most 15 footers for birdie at the end of the week. I didn't try to force anything and made a lot of pars. I had some putts go in the first round and built up a little lead."
Burnett's patience boded well as he withstood a charge from Vanderbilt's William Moll. After losing the lead at the turn in the final round, Burnett posted a bogey-free 1-under 35 on the back nine that led to both medalist honors and a team win, the second-ranked Tar Heels' fifth of the season.
Burnett has seen and been an integral part of the growth of the UNC program. His career success has mirrored that of the team with its ups and downs. However, Burnett has been a constant in Carolina's upward trajectory in joining the nation's elite programs.
"It is hard to believe this is the same team I walked into five years ago," says Burnett. "It is so different in how we show up to tournaments. Back then when we were playing in a big tournament, it was awesome if we could finish fourth or fifth against a strong field. Now, we show up every week expecting to win and most people at the tournament expect us to have a shot at winning as well."
Burnett credits this change to the team's talent and work ethic.
"Nobody wants to lose to anyone which is a healthy thing, but we are also very happy for each other when one of our teammates beats us," says Burnett. "That competition of wanting to beat your teammates is important and seeing how good they are. Anytime you can tee it up against three of the top players in the world every week is great."
(All five of Carolina's starters are ranked in the top 100 in the World Amateur Rankings – Ford is No. 4, Greaser is No. 6, Menante is No. 15, Burnett is No. 44 and Fountain is No. 98).
After reaching the quarterfinals and finishing fifth at the NCAA Championships the last two seasons, the Tar Heels have their sights even higher.
"We have the talent to win a national championship and that is everyone's goal," says Burnett.
Burnett will turn professional following the NCAA Championship, which, if the Tar Heels qualify for out of regional play, is scheduled for May 26-31. Currently No. 18 in the PGA Tour University Rankings, Burnett hopes to secure status on the Korn Ferry Tour for this summer.
However Carolina finishes this season, DiBitetto believes Burnett will continue to be a valuable teammate on and off the course.
"Another reason why he's been so crucial and significant to our success is his personality," says DiBitetto. "He does a good job of keeping things light-hearted and keeping guys loose in critical and stressful situations. As we turn the page to the postseason, the intensity starts to amplify and it's amazing having a guy like Ryan there to keep everyone laughing, loose and joking.
"All of us, coaches and players, see a high ceiling for Burnie."
Players Mentioned
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