Georgia golf coach Chris Haack was disappointed his team wasn’t able to win the inaugural East Lake Cup, but left the course convinced that the Bulldogs are better for the experience.
“I’ve known these guys are good,” Haack said. “I hope these guys take from that they can compete and do this again and make another run in late May. I told (Illinois coach) Mike Small that I’ll be glad to do this one more time at NCAAs and would love the opportunity.”
Illinois defeated Georgia 3-1-1 in the match-play event Tuesday in a match that wasn’t decided until the penultimate match. The Illini, ranked No. 2 in the nation by Golfweek, won their fourth tournament of the fall season over the No. 17 Bulldogs.
“Chris is a great coach, they’ve got a great program and I’ve got a lot of respect for them. But today was our day,” Small said. “That’s match play. Anybody can beat anybody.”
The tournament, which was created to raise money and awareness for the East Lake Foundation, is a rare match-play event. Most college tournaments are stroke play, even though the NCAA championships are determined in a match-play format.
Georgia reached the final with a 3-1-1 victory over LSU that was completed on Tuesday morning. Illinois beat Southern Cal 4-1 to reach the final.
Georgia lost two matches early. Sepp Straka ran into a buzz saw in Illinois’ Thomas Detry, who birdied four of his first eight holes to take a commanding lead en route to a 4-and-3 win. Georgia’s Jaime Rivarola was 2-down after five holes and never got any closer in a 3-and-2 loss to Charlie Danielson, the No. 5-ranked player in the country.
Georgia’s Zach Healy birdied the difficult 18th hole to nail down a 2-up win over Dylan Meyer.
That left the Bulldogs needing wins in their final two matches from Lee McCoy and Greyson Sigg. McCoy, a member of the U.S. Walker Cup team, battled back from being 2-down at the turn and halved his match against Nick Hardy.
Sigg was 3-up after making birdie at the 12th hole, but could not close it out. Alex Burge won the next two holes and evened the match with consecutive birdies at 16 and 17. Burge won the match on the 19th hole.
“It was a good match,” Sigg said. “Someone’s got to lose and sometimes it’s you.”
Haack said, “If you’d told me we’re going to make it to the finals and come right down to the wire and either going to win or lose, I’ll take those chances. This was a great experience for my guys. Illinois is no sham of a team. They’re really good and we went toe-to-toe with them.”
In the men’s consolation match, Southern Cal defeated LSU 4-1.
The Southern Cal women dominated Duke 4-1 to win the women’s division. In the consolation match, Stanford beat Baylor 4-0-1, with Riverdale’s Mariah Stackhouse halving her match with Baylor’s Laura Lonardi.
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