North Carolina earns top seed, leads ACC charge into match play in NCAA Championship at Grayhawk

   When the smoke finally cleared from a long Memorial Day of golf in the NCAA Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., there was one inescapable conclusion: The Atlantic Coast Conference was the best conference in America in the wraparound 2022-2023 season.

   Not the powerful Southeastern Conference, although you can still make a pretty strong case that the SEC is still the deepest group. Not the Pac-12. Not the Big 12, which has produced several recent NCAA champions, including Texas a year ago.

   In the end, the ACC’s North Carolina, No. 2 in the latest Golfstat rankings, closed with a sparkling 7-under-par 273 Monday over the 7,289-yard, par-70 Raptor Course at Grayhawk and finished as the top seed for match play with a 6-under 1,114 total.

   The Tar Heels are one of four ACC teams in the eight-team match-play bracket, which will be teeing off as I put this post together. That’s right, fully half of the match-play field comes from the ACC and that’s a pretty impressive feat.

   The ACC, which has already produced an NCAA women’s champion in Wake Forest last week, has always been a strong golf group, but this will have to do go down as a banner year for the conference.

   There will be a lot written and said about who will not be teeing it up in match play Tuesday, particularly SEC power Vanderbilt, which came to Grayhawk as the No. 1 team in the country and left empty-handed. The Commodores just never got it going in the desert, finishing in a tie for 11^th place with SEC rival Alabama at 21-over 1,141.

   I’m sure there’s no shortage of disappointment for No. 6 Stanford, either, as the Pac-12 champion lost on the second hole of a playoff with conference rival and fourth-ranked Arizona State for the final spot in the match-play bracket.

   They had engaged in a couple of wild shootouts in both the Pac-12 Championship and again at the Las Vergas Regional. It was hard to imagine that the Sun Devils, playing just a few miles from their campus, and the Cardinal would be battling it out just to get into match play, but that was the deal after they finished in a tie for eighth place at 12-over 1,132.

   The day wasn’t a total loss for the SEC, though, as conference champion Florida, ranked ninth, got a share of second place in the team standings with Big Ten champion Illinois, No. 3 in the country, at 2-under 1,118 and produced an individual national champion in Fred Biondi, a senior from Brazil and No. 16 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.

   The determined Gators got it in under par in each of the last three rounds at Grayhawk, closing with a 1-under 279 after back-to-back 2-under 278s in the second and third rounds.

   And while Biondi benefited from a bit of a collapse from Georgia Tech’s Ross Steelman, a senior from Columbia, Mo. and No. 21 in the WAGR, Biondi’s sparkling final round of 3-under 67 was his fourth round in the 60s on a Raptor Course that was not yielding a whole lot of low numbers.

   After an early burst that included birdies at the second, fourth and sixth holes, Biondi made a double bogey at the seventh hole. He bounced back with birdies at the ninth and 10^th holes, dropped a shot with a bogey at 12, but then made a birdie at 14 to get it to 7-under.

   Biondi then grinded out four pars on the Raptor Course’s tough closing stretch, his final-round 67 giving him a 7-under 273 total. He is Florida’s third NCAA individual champion, its first since Nick Gilliam in 2001.

   Steelman had led the individual race ever since opening with a sizzling 6-under 64, an effort nobody came close to matching. He finally stumbled on his way to the house, making bogeys at the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th holes for a final round of 3-over 73 that left Steelman in a tie for second place in the individual standings with Illinois’ Jackson Buchanan, a sophomore from Dacula, Ga., at 6-under 274, a shot behind Biondi.

   But give Steelman credit. He played a huge part in getting a talented Georgia Tech bunch – the Yellow Jackets were the champions of the ACC, don’t forget – into the match-play bracket.

   Georgia Tech closed with a solid 4-over 284 to share fifth place in the team standings with ACC rival and seventh-ranked Florida State, each landing on 6-over 1,126, six shots behind West Coast Conference power and eighth-ranked Pepperdine.

   Buchanan closed with a sparkling 3-under 67 that got him a share of second place in the individual standings with Steelman at 6-under and got the Fighting Illini across the finish line.

   Illinois held a three-shot lead over Pepperdine in the team standings going into the final round before closing with a 4-over 284 that enabled it to get a share of second place with Florida at 2-under 1,118.

   Illinois will get Florida State in the quarterfinals as the Seminoles matched ACC rival North Carolina for the low team round of the day with their 7-under 273 to get a share of fifth place with Georgia Tech at 6-over 1,126.

   Pepperdine closed with a 3-over 283 to finish in fourth place with an even-par 1,120 total and earn a spot in the match-play bracket for the third straight year. The Waves get Georgia Tech in the quarterfinals.

   No. 16 Virginia was the fourth ACC team to earn a spot in the match-play bracket. The Cavaliers hung around all weekend, then closed with a solid 3-under 277 to finish in seventh place with an 11-over 1,131 total. A lot of big names in college golf left town Monday night. Virginia is still in the desert, still competing.

   Then there was a battle for the final spot in the match-play bracket between the two Pac-12 powers, Arizona State and Stanford.

   Stanford’s Barclay Brown, a senior from England and No. 59, arrived at the 18^th green with a birdie look that would have given the Cardinal eighth place, but somehow left the slick downhill putt short.

   When Arizona State sophomore Preston Summerhays of the golfing Summerhays family of Scottsdale and No. 28 in the WAGR knocked in a birdie putt on the Raptor Course’s 14^th hole, the second hole of the playoff, it was the Sun Devils, who fell to Texas in the NCAA Championship’s Final Match a year ago at Grayhawk, beating out Stanford for the eighth and final spot in the match-play bracket.

   Top-seeded North Carolina had to gulp hard when it realized it was going to have face either Arizona State or Stanford in the quarterfinals. But there are no easy roads to a national championship. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you’re one of the eight teams still standing in the NCAA Championship’s match-play bracket, you’ve had a great season, you’re an elite team in Division I college golf.

   North Carolina was led by Dylan Menante, a senior from Carlsbad, Calif. and No. 14 in the WAGR who finished in a tie for fourth place in the individual standings with Stanford’s Brown at 5-under 275 after matching par in the final round.

   Menante was in the lineup for Pepperdine when the Waves reached the semifinals a year ago at Grayhawk. He reached the semifinals of last summer’s U.S. Amateur at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J. before falling to eventual champion Sam Bennett. You could certainly argue that Menante was the missing piece for the Tar Heels.

   North Carolina’s final-round push was sparked by Austin Greaser, a senior from Vandalia, Ohio who matched the low round of the day Monday, a sizzling 4-under 66 that left him among the group tied for 11^th place with an even-par 280.

   Greaser, who lost in the U.S. Amateur final at Oakmont Country Club to James Piot in the summer of 2021, jump-started his round by finding the bottom of the cup off the tee at the par-3 fifth hole for a hole-in-one.

   David Ford, a sophomore from Peachtree Corners, Ga. and No. 4 the WAGR, delivered a 2-under 68 in the final round to finish in the group tied for 22^nd place for the Tar Heels with a 2-over 282 total.

   Rounding out the North Carolina lineup were Ryan Burnett, a fifth-year player from Lafayette, Calif. and No. 29 in the WAGR, and Peter Fountain, a junior from Raleigh, N.C., both of whom finished in the group tied for 36^th place at 5-over 285. Burnett closed with a solid 1-under 69 while Fountain finished up with a 2-over 72.

   Stanford’s Brown closed with a 1-under 69 to get his share of fourth place with North Carolina’s Menante at 5-under 275.

   Virginia’s talented freshman, Ben James of Milford, Conn. and No. 7 in the WAGR, matched the low round of the day in Monday’s final round with a 4-under 66 to finish alone in sixth place with a 4-under 276 total.

   A couple of Illinois’ veteran fifth-year players, Adrien Dumont de Chassart of Belgium and No. 11 in the WAGR and Tommy Kuhl of Morton, Ill. and No. 56 in the WAGR, joined their teammate Buchanan to give the Fighting Illini three top-10 finishers as they landed in the quartet tied for seventh place at 1-under 279.

   Dumont de Chassart closed with a 3-over 73 while Kuhl finished up with a solid 1-over 71.

   Dumont de Chassart and Kuhl were joined at 1-under by Pepperdine’s Sam Choi, a graduate student from Anaheim, Calif. and No. 43 in the WAGR and Florida State’s Brett Roberts, a junior from Coral Springs, Fla. and No. 24 in the WAGR.

   Choi matched par in the final round with a 70 while Roberts surged up the leaderboard with a sparkling 3-under 67.

   It was a frustrating day for No. 12 Auburn, out of the SEC, as the Tigers closed with a 2-over 282 to finish alone in 10^th place with a 21-over 1,138 total, six shots out of the playoff between Arizona State and Stanford for the final spot in the match-play bracket.

   Junior Carson Bacha, the PIAA Class AAA champion in 2019 as a senior at Central York and No. 86 in the WAGR, had a second straight strong showing at Grayhawk. Bacha closed with his worst round of the weekend, a 4-over 74 that left him in the group tied for 48^th place with a 7-over 287 total.

   Another Pennsylvania scholastic champion, Stanford sixth-year player Nate Menon, who claimed the Class AA crown in 2015 as a junior at Wyomissing, contributed a counting 1-over 71 to the Cardinal’s ultimately failed bid for the final spot in the match-play bracket as he finished in a tie for 77^th place with a 296 total.

   Ohio State fifth-year player Neal Shipley, who captured the Pennsylvania Amateur crown last summer at Llanerch Country Club, began the day just four shots out of the individual lead after his 3-under 67 earned the Buckeyes a spot in a playoff with Texas Tech for 15^th place in the team standings, the cutoff for a team to compete in Monday’s final round.

   Ohio State prevailed in the playoff, but Shipley, a member of Pittsburgh Central Catholic’s PIAA Class AAA championship team as a senior in 2018, struggled in the final round. Shipley, who used his final season of eligibility at Ohio State after a standout career at James Madison, closed with a 79 to finish in the group tied for 29^th place with a 4-over 284 total.