Tar Heel golfers fall to top teams at Jack Nicklaus Invitational

The North Carolina men’s golf team came in to this week’s Jack Nicklaus Invitational in Dublin, Ohio, ranked 12th in a talented 12-team field.

And if not for a final-round collapse by Texas Tech, the Tar Heels would have finished in 12th place.

After walking off the course at the bottom of the leaderboard on Tuesday, UNC watched the Red Raiders squander 27 strokes in the last round to move the Tar Heels into 11th place by one stroke.

But that didn’t make the Tar Heels feel much better about their own performance.

“We had an opportunity to beat some of the best teams in the country this week. It was an opportunity for us to prove that we belong with those teams,” coach Andrew Sapp said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t play well.”

Senior Matt Raudenbush led the Tar Heels, finishing tied for 29th on the individual leaderboard with a 10-over-par 226. He was closely followed by teammates Zach Munroe and Brandon Dalinka, who finished 35th and 39th, respectively. Senior Patrick Barrett carded a 23-over 239 to finish in 54th place.

“We didn’t have too much go right for us this week,” Raudenbush said. “We had too many double and triple bogeys, and we need to limit those mistakes.”

The elite field featured eight teams in the top-50 and four in the top-25, including No. 5 Texas, No. 10 Arkansas and No. 2 Oklahoma State.

Texas was the only team to break par, blowing away the field with a 54-hole score of two-under 862. Host Ohio State finished 16 strokes back in second place, followed closely by third-place Illinois.

Thomas Pieters of Illinois took the individual crown, firing a seven-under 209. Tyler Duncan of Purdue and Jordan Spieth of Texas tied for second place with a five-under 211 and Luke Guthrie of Illinois took fourth at three-under 213.

North Carolina, paired with Purdue and Texas for the first two rounds on Monday, posted a 36-hole score of 30-over 606. On Tuesday’s final round, the Tar Heels carded a 19-over 307 to bring their total score up to a 49-over 913.

The lengthy 7,352-yard course at Muirfield National Golf Club played to a par 72.

“Muirfield is a tough golf course, and we found that out for ourselves this week,” Raudenbush said. “The course dictates where you have to play your ball off the tee. If you try to be too aggressive, it’s very hard to recover because of the severity and speed of the greens.”

The Tar Heels have nearly three weeks to make adjustments before wrapping up their fall campaign with the UNC-Greensboro Bridgestone Intercollegiate on Oct. 29 and 30.

“There’s always things you can look at to build on,” Sapp said. “We started off poorly (in the last round), but fought back on the back nine and played under par for the back nine. They’ve done a great job in practice, and it’s just a matter of translating it to game time.”

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.