The North Carolina men’s golf team finished 15th in the NCAA Championship on Monday, its highest finish since 2003. However, the team failed to advance to the quarterfinals match play, ending its spring season after four rounds.
What happened?
North Carolina entered the Championship as the No.13 seed and faced 19 other teams ranked in the Golfstat top 25.
The Tar Heel golfers for the tournament were Joshua Martin, William Register, Ben Griffin, Jose Montaño and Austin Hitt. First-year Ryan Gerald was the team's alternate. The first round of competition was supposed to begin Friday morning, but the start was delayed due to rain.
Once the first round began, all five Tar Heels bogeyed their first hole. Martin then recovered for back-to-back birdies and the team made it 10 holes before play was suspended because of darkness. Through those 10 holes, UNC combined for a score of one-over-par.
On Saturday morning, play resumed and the Tar Heels had to finish both the first round and the second round. After the first round, the team combined for a score of eight-over-par, sitting them in 22nd place. In the second round, they improved with a one-over-par score — moving up to a four-way tie for 13th place.
But only the top 15 teams advance to the fourth round of the NCAA Championship, so the third round was the Tar Heels' last chance to move up, or at least stay where it was to continue playing on.
In the third round, North Carolina stumbled and shot nine-over-par, but survived in 15th place, nabbing the last qualifying spot for the fourth round.
Before the fourth round, the Tar Heels made a roster change. After the third round, senior Montaño flew home to Cochabamba, Bolivia to compete in the South America Games. First-year Gerard replaced Montaño in the lineup and made his NCAA Championship debut.