A shot behind and facing a birdie putt identical to that of the leader he stalked, North Carolina’s Bailey Patrick thought a runner-up finish in UNC’s first tournament of the season would do just fine.
Then Georgia Tech’s Ollie Schniederjans, first to play and normally sure-handed with a putter, rammed his birdie attempt several feet past the hole. With a surprising jolt, Patrick had life.
“It was a little different knowing that my putt was to tie and not for second,” Patrick said by phone, a seven-and-a-half-hour drive to Chapel Hill ahead of his team. “I just went through my normal routine and tried not to think twice about it.”
Patrick’s ensuing birdie attempt sidled up to the hole, leaving an easy tap-in for par. Schniederjans left his own par putt begging, settling for bogey and giving Patrick a share of the individual crown at the Carpet Capital Collegiate in Georgia.
With Patrick authoring a nine-under-par tournament, and freshman Henry Do earning a top-25 finish in his collegiate debut, UNC mustered a fifth-place finish in the 14-team event.
Do, a native of Canton, Mich., began Sunday tied for seventh. He skidded down the leaderboard by dropping four shots in what was otherwise a superb rookie performance.
“It definitely wasn’t a surprise,” said coach Andrew Sapp of Do. “We’ve been watching him shoot those scores for quite some time (in high school and team qualifying).”
After posting consecutive low rounds on Friday and Saturday, Patrick entered the final round two shots behind Schniederjans. Patrick, who collected three top-ten finishes in 2012-13, clung to the coattails of Schniederjans in a wild Sunday finish.
Playing in the tournament’s final group, Patrick found water off the tee on 14, then hit a stellar approach shot and salvaged a bogey to keep Schniederjans within arm’s reach. He holed a “nerve-wracking” bunker shot on 16 for birdie, then scrambled to make bogey on 17 to pull within a stroke of Schniederjans.
