In the first tournament of the spring season, the North Carolina men’s golf team placed sixth out of 14 teams in the Sea Best Invitational on Monday and Tuesday at the TPC Sawgrass Valley course in Jacksonville, Fla.
What happened?
UNC had a consistent outing, finishing both the first and second rounds with a total score of 285 and the third round with a score of 288. UNC struggled a bit as a team with the simpler par three and par four holes, shooting eight-over and 28-over, respectively. However, the Tar Heels were able to make up for that a tad as they shot five-under on the par five holes.
Head coach Andrew DiBitetto commented on what it’s like to start the season off with such a challenge.
“TPC Sawgrass is a very difficult and demanding golf course,” DiBitetto said. “In terms of our performance, I would say we were pretty average. We did some things well and we did some things not well.”
Who stood out?
Coming off of a great fall season where he led North Carolina with a stroke average of 70.13 in five fall events, junior Austin Hitt kept that momentum going with a standout performance for North Carolina. Hitt tied for 11th on the individual leaderboard and throughout the three rounds, he shot 71, 68 and then a 72 to end the tournament at one-over-par.
Once the results were in, DiBitetto shared his thoughts on Hitt’s solid play.
“He kind of led the way for us,” DiBitetto said. “For him to shoot 68 yesterday on this golf course was a really good round.”