BRADENTON, Fla. - Georgia has put itself in excellent position to pursue its third NCAA men’s championship. Monday, the Bulldogs locked down a spot in the match-play quarterfinals by closing the stroke-play portion of the tournament with a 3-over-par 291 at the Concession Golf Club. The score was good enough to finish in a tie for third with Texas at 6-over for the tournament and earn the No. 3 seed in match play.
At 7 a.m. Tuesday, in a match to be broadcast on the Golf Channel, the Bulldogs will play No. 6 seed South Florida for a spot in the semifinals, to be contested later in the day. The Georgia-USF winner will play the Vanderbilt-LSU winner. The championship will be played Wednesday. The matchups on the other side of the bracket are Illinois-UCLA and Texas-USC.
Georgia began the fourth round leading the tournament at 3-over par, three strokes ahead of USC.
“We played solid, which is all we really needed to do,” coach Chris Haack said. “I wanted to see us have a day where we just never really got close and stressed out about it and, to their credit, they just continued to play the same way they had all week, and played really good.”
Junior Lee McCoy rebounded from above-par scores in the first three rounds to post a 2-under 70, the Bulldogs’ lowest score of the day.
“People remember who won the NCAA championship, and we’re in a great spot to do that, and it’s certainly not because of anything that I did that was incredibly outstanding in stroke play,” McCoy said. “We would have had a good chance to make it if it was those four guys and I didn’t even tee it up. I’m just so proud of them and I am happy that my game has kind of improved throughout the week and I’m getting in a spot right now where I’m hitting it really well and playing really well. I’m just really looking forward to tomorrow and showing everybody what we can do.”
South Florida is playing in just its second NCAA championship, but has won its past three tournaments.
Mookie DeMoss, T11, E - 71-74-70-73 — 288
Zach Healy, T16, +1 - 70-72-70-77 — 289
Lee McCoy, T33, +6 - 73-77-74-70 — 294
Sepp Straka, T45, +9 - 74-70-78-75 — 297
Greyson Sigg, T49, +10 - 75-78-72-73 — 298
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