As the sun set on the Concession Golf Club on Sunday, Georgia’s work at the third round at the NCAA golf championship was not complete.
A lightning delay halted play just as the Bulldogs were nearing the end of their round. Regardless, Georgia will report to the course early Monday morning at the top of the leaderboard. The Bulldogs lead the 30-team field at 1-over. They stood at 4-under for the third round when play was suspended.
“That’s awesome,” said Sepp Straka, who was 2-over with three holes remaining. “It’s always good to see the Dogs on top, just good to see that we’re playing up to our potential.”
Barring the Bulldogs losing 25 strokes to par over the final four holes, both Georgia and Georgia Tech will make the 15-team cut to make it to Monday’s fourth round, after which the top eight teams will advance to match play and the individual champion will be determined. The Yellow Jackets finished their round just ahead of the suspension of play at 14-over, tied for eighth. They completed their 18 holes in 2-over par, their best round of the tournament.
Tech coach Bruce Heppler said it was “just very satisfying” that the Jackets – whose five-man lineup includes two freshmen and a sophomore who played two events as a freshman – have reached the fourth round and are in position to make the match-play field. He was not so thrilled with teams having to make two cuts, a new format this year.
“We’re the only association in America that would not just have one cut day,” Heppler said. “We go ahead and have two of them. Just the brilliance (of the NCAA) is unmatched.”
The Bulldogs continued to avoid costly holes, with just one double bogey on Sunday. The remainder of the field, 29 of the best teams in the country, averaged five scores of double bogey or higher. Georgia has demonstrated its potential this season with three tournament wins, but has also finished at or near the bottom of three others. The Bulldogs had to rally to make the NCAA championship out of regionals when they were 12th out of 13 teams after the first day.
“If you would have told us we’d be in first place, hopefully, heading into the fourth round, I think everyone in the country would take it,” said Georgia sophomore Greyson Sigg of Augusta. “We’re obviously happy with where we are, but we can’t lose focus.”
Freshman Zach Healy, from Norcross, continued his strong run of play, completing 14 holes at 4-under par for the tournament, tied for third and three shots off the lead. Mookie DeMoss, from Duluth, birdied four out of five holes on the back nine of his uncompleted round to jump to 2-under and a tie for seventh. Georgia will be in position to compete for its first individual NCAA title, and second overall, since 1946.
If the Bulldogs can make match play, it’ll be their first appearance since 2011. Georgia has finished 17th, 19th and 11th in the past three years.
For Tech, All-American Ollie Schniederjans, from Powder Springs, holed out his bunker shot on his final hole, completing his round at 2-under after playing the first two rounds in 6-over.
“It was a perfect shot, and I finally got something to go in,” Schniederjans said.
Sophomore Vince Whaley decorated his scorecard with seven birdies, three of them on par fives, for a 4-under 68. Hitting 320 yards off the tee, the lengthy course suits Whaley well. He leads the tournament with 15 birdies and he is 5-under par since his 7-over first round, when he was so jittery on his opening tee shot that he topped it right into the ground.
“It was just 100 percent shock,” he said of the mishit.
With both teams in contention, less of a shock now would be a potential Tech-Georgia matchup in match play which has yet to happen in the six years that the NCAA championship has been decided in that format.
