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The Daily Tar Heel

UNC men's golf team gets ‘reality check’

	Patrick Barrett was the top Tar Heel finisher in the Royal Oaks Intercollegiate in 21st place.

Patrick Barrett was the top Tar Heel finisher in the Royal Oaks Intercollegiate in 21st place.

Two weeks ago, four Tar Heels posted top-10 finishes at the Wolfpack Intercollegiate, leading the North Carolina men’s golf team to its first win of the season.

But in their last tournament of the fall season, at the Royal Oaks Intercollegiate in Dallas, none of the UNC golfers emerged atop the leaderboard. The team recorded a nine-over combined total to finish in 12th place.

Oklahoma State came out on top of the 14-team field by firing a 10-under par 842.

“Sometimes good play can be contagious as well as bad play. We just really didn’t get anything going this week and struggled a little bit,” coach Andrew Sapp said.

Senior Patrick Barrett led the way for the Tar Heels, shooting an even-par 213 in the three rounds of the tournament, which placed him in a tie for 21st place.

Barrett was followed by sophomore teammate Brandon Dalinka who faltered on Tuesday after sitting in the top 15 after the first two rounds. Dalinka ended the tournament tied for 29th at two-over par.

“Patrick played solid. He didn’t really make too many huge mistakes and played well today,” Sapp said. “Brandon played well also. Unfortunately, he finished today with a triple-bogey and bogey coming down the stretch.”

The three remaining golfers of UNC’s starting five — seniors Michael McGowan and Clark Palmer and sophomore Bailey Patrick — all had similarly disappointing outings. Palmer finished in a tie for 44th place while Patrick ended in a tie for 56th place.

Although the par 71, 7,068-yard layout at Royal Oaks Country Club seemingly gave UNC trouble this week, Dalinka believes the Tar Heels simply failed to execute.

“The course really wasn’t all that tough. We just made it hard on ourselves by not being able to hit the fairways, which led us to commit some unnecessary errors and cost us a lot of shots,” Dalinka said.

For UNC, which will not return to tournament action until February, this week’s tournament was not the best way to end its fall campaign, which included three top-two finishes.

“We’re disappointed because we really didn’t finish off our fall season on the right note, or at least a note that we wanted to end on,” Dalinka said.

Sapp, however, sees the team’s disappointing showing at Royal Oaks as one his golfers will benefit from.

“This is a reality check for us. Our guys have a really strong work ethic, so they will all look at the fall, take the positives — but also realize what they need to work on in the offseason to get better and ready for the spring season,” Sapp said.

“It’s sad to end on this note, but in a way it could be good. It could really spark a fire under these guys.”

Contact the desk editor at
sports@dailytarheel.com.

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