Steelman helps Georgia Tech grab lead in the team standings as NCAA Championship tees off at Grayhawk

   Georgia Tech headed for the NCAA Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. on a roll.

   The Yellow Jackets had captured the Atlantic Coast Conference’s championship, defeating Wake Forest in the match-play final at the Country Club of North Carolina before claiming the team crown in the Salem Regional at The Cliffs at Keowee Falls in Salem, S.C. with an eye-popping 53-under-par total.

   Georgia Tech, behind individual leader Ross Steelman, a senior from Columbia, Mo. and No. 21 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), kept that roll going Friday by grabbing the team lead with a solid even-par 280 at Grayhawk’s Raptor Course.

   It was the first day of 72 holes of stroke-play qualifying for match play. The field of 30 teams will be cut in half following Sunday’s third round. With The Golf Channel cameras rolling on a Memorial Day Monday, an individual NCAA champion will be crowned and the teams that survived the cut will battle it out to be one of the eight teams remaining for match play. The match-play quarterfinals will tee off Tuesday.

   That’s the ultimate goal for Georgia Tech: To get into the match play. The Yellow Jackets, No. 11 in the latest Golfstat rankings, took a big step toward realizing that goal with their even-par start over the 7,289-yard, par-70 Raptor Course layout.

   Steelman put together an efficient round that featured six birdies with nary a bogey on his scorecard as his 6-under 64 gave him a two-shot lead over a trio of his closest pursuers.

   Steelman got off to a good start by making birdies on the first, second and fourth holes, then added a closing burst with birdies at 13, 15 and 17 to get it to 6-under.

   West Coast Conference power Pepperdine, ranked eighth, and Southeastern Conference representative Arkansas, ranked 28^th, were a shot behind Georgia Tech in the team standings and were tied for second place at 1-over 281.

   Pepperdine won national crown at Grayhawk two springs ago and reached the semifinals a year ago. It was Arkansas that Georgia Tech had to overtake to claim the team crown in the Salem Regional, the Razorbacks finishing with a pretty impressive 45-under total themselves.

   SEC champion Vanderbilt, the No. 1 team in the country, headed a powerful trio of teams tied for fourth place at 2-over 282. Vanderbilt fell in the SEC’s match-play final to Florida in its bid for a second straight conference crown.

   Georgia Tech’s ACC rival, North Carolina, ranked No. 2, was also in the group at 2-over. The Tar Heels also emerged from the Salem Regional as they finished in third place, two shots behind Arkansas with a 43-under total.

   Big 12 power Texas Tech, ranked fifth, rounded out the trio of teams tied at 2-over.

   A couple of Florida teams, SEC champion Florida, ranked ninth, and Florida State, another ACC entry ranked seventh, accounted for the next two spots in the team standings as the Gators were in seventh place with a 3-over 283 total while the Seminoles were another shot behind Florida in eighth place with a 4-over 284 total.

   Rounding out the top 10 in the team standings were three teams tied for ninth place at 5-over 285, including yet another SEC representative in Georgia, ranked 25^th, Big Ten champion Illinois, No. 3 in the Golfstat rankings, and West Coast Conference runnerup San Francisco, ranked 40^th.

   Backing up Steelman for Georgia Tech was Bentley Forrester, a redshirt senior from Gainesville, Ga. and No. 53 in the WAGR who was in the group tied for 31^st place with a 1-over 71.

   Conner Howe, a senior from Ogden, Utah and No. 50 in the WAGR, was a shot behind his Georgia Tech teammate Forrester in the group tied for 47^th place with a 2-over 72. Christo Lamprecht, a junior from South Africa and No. 8 in the WAGR, was another shot behind Howe for the Yellow Jackets in the group tied for 90^th place with a 3-over 73.

   Rounding out the Georgia Tech lineup was Hiroshi Tai, a freshman from Singapore and No. 87 in the WAGR whose 6-over 76 that left him in the group tied for 115^th place, a score the Yellow Jackets were able to toss.

   Steelman’s closest pursuers in the individual chase included Vanderbilt’s Cole Sherwood, a senior from Austin, Texas and No. 18 in the WAGR, Arkansas’ Mateo Fernandez de Oliveira, a senior from Argentina and No. 32 in the WAGR, and New Mexico’s Matthew Watkins, a junior from Rockwall, Texas, all of whom carded a solid 4-under 66.

   Fernandez de Oliveira’s Arkansas teammate, Wil Gibson, a graduate student from Jonesboro, Ark., was alone in fifth place with a 3-under 67.

   Among the eight players tied for sixth place at 2-under 68 was Auburn junior Carson Bacha, winner of the PIAA Class AAA crown in 2019 as a senior at Central York and No. 86 in the WAGR. Bacha seems to save his best stuff for Grayhawk as he finished in a tie for 20^th place in the individual standings a year ago.

   Auburn, another entry from the powerful SEC and ranked 12^th, was in 14^th place following an opening round of 8-over 288.

   The group at 2-under also includes Illinois’ Adrien Dumont de Chassart, a fifth-year player from Belgium and No. 11 in the WAGR, Oklahoma’s Drew Goodman, a sophomore home boy from Norman, Okla. and No. 51 in the WAGR, Texas Tech’s Matthew Comegys, a freshman from Van Alstyne, Texas, Stanford’s Barclay Brown, a senior from England and No. 59 in the WAGR, North Carolina’s Dylan Menante, a senior from Carlsbad, Calif. and No. 14 in the WAGR, Pepperdine’s Roberto Nieves, a graduate student from Miami, Fla., and San Francisco’s Matthew Anderson, a graduate student from Canada.

If Nieves’ name is familiar to people in the Philadelphia area, it’s because he spent four years as a standout at Delaware. Nieves took the fifth year of eligibility granted by the NCAA to those whose season came to a premature end when the coronavirus pandemic surfaced in the spring of 2020 at Pepperdine.

   The Tar Heels’ Menante was in the Pepperdine lineup when the Waves fell to Arizona State in the semifinals at Grayhawk a year ago before transferring to Chapel Hill. It was Menate who ended the remarkable run of Downingtown West junior Nick Gross in the U.S. Amateur quarterfinals at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J. last summer before Menante fell to eventual champion Sam Bennett in the semifinals.