April 19, 2018
THE FLATS – Looking to build on its strong history of 16 titles, Georgia Tech’s No. 5/6 golf team returns to one of its favorite golf courses this weekend to compete in the 55th Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Golf Championship at the Old North State Club on the banks of Badin Lake in New London, N.C.
ACC Men’s Golf Championship site | Live Scoring | Georgia Tech Tournament Notes
TOURNAMENT INFORMATION – The 55th annual Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Golf Championship will be held Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, April 20-22, returning to the Old North State Club in New London, N.C., after one year in Clinton, S.C. Old North State is a 7,102-yard, par 72 layout adjacent to Badin Lake, about 50 miles north of Charlotte, N.C.
The championship is contested over 54 holes, 18 each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, beginning at 9 a.m. each day off holes 1 and 10. Seeding for the championship is based on Golfstat rankings, with Tech currently ranked No. 5 and the top seed in the championship. The rest of the ACC, in order of Golfstat ranking, are Clemson (15), North Carolina (17), Florida State (19), Wake Forest (28), Duke (29), NC State (35), Louisville (47), Virginia (48), Notre Dame (73), Virginia Tech (90), Boston College (139)
ACC Men’s Golf Championship – First Round Pairings
9:00 – 9:48 a.m. = NC State, Louisville, Virginia (Starting on Hole #10)
9:00 – 9:48 a.m. = Florida State, Wake Forest, Duke (Starting on Hole #1)
10:00 – 10:48 a.m. = Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Boston College (Starting on Hole #10)
10:00 a.m. – 10:48 a.m. = Georgia Tech, Clemson, North Carolina (Starting on Hole #1)
Ten of Georgia Tech’s 16 ACC men’s golf championships have been won at the Old North State Club, most recently in 2015, when the Yellow Jackets won the title in a playoff over Clemson. Wake Forest leads all schools with 18 league titles and 22 individual champions. Georgia Tech, which has won 14 outright ACC Championships and shared two more, has produced 11 individual medalists since joining the conference in 1979. North Carolina is third with 11 titles (10 outright), followed by Clemson with 10 (nine outright) and Duke, the 2017 champion, with nine.
Pairings and tee times for Saturday and Sunday will be based on team score. The video coverage of the championship will be streamed live on ACC Network Extra beginning at 2 p.m. on Saturday and 1 p.m. on Sunday. There is no charge for admission for fans.
TEAM UPDATE – Georgia Tech remains No. 5 in the latest Golfstat rankings and No. 6 in the Golfweek/Sagarin Index after finishing third in its last outing at the Irish Creek Intercollegiate in Kannapolis, N.C., two weeks ago. The Yellow Jackets have a victory at the General James Hackler Championship, a fifth-place finish at the Amer Ari Invitational in Hawai’i and fourth-place finishes at the Puerto Rico Classic and the Valspar Collegiate this spring after posting a pair of wins and a runner-up finish in four fall events.
Tech’s three tournament wins this year broke a two-year victory drought for the program.
Tech owns a 102-16-4 overall win-loss record this year against a schedule ranked the 14th most difficult in the country, according to the Golfweek/Sagarin Index. That includes a 50-16-4 mark against top-50 teams. The Yellow Jackets have been remarkably consistent and balanced in its lineup, ranking fourth nationally in lowest dropped score (75.00), and only three individuals have finished outside the top 50 in nine tournaments in 2017-18.
TECH LINEUP – Georgia Tech has played the same six players in nearly every event this season with few exceptions, and all six are ranked between No. 41 and No. 104 in the latest Golfstat rankings – Noah Norton (41), Tyler Strafaci (53), Luke Schniederjans (63), Andy Ogletree (88), Jacob Joiner (89) and Chris Petefish (104). Among those, Petefish has the lone individual victory this year, that coming at the General Hackler Championship. They have 12 combined top-10 finishes and all six average between 71.29 and 72.89 strokes per round.
Norton, who missed Tech’s last outing with an injury, is in the lineup this weekend. Joiner is the odd man out for the ACC Championship, as only five players can compete per team, but traveled with the team to Old North State in case Norton suffers a setback.
All five Tech individuals at the Valspar finished between 13th (Norton, Ogletree) and 31st place, four of the five placed between first and 22nd at the Hackler (Petefish, Norton, Ogletree, Schniederjans), and Norton, Petefish and Strafaci all tied for seventh at Puerto Rico. In the last outing at Irish Creek, all five finished between 12th and 30th place.
COACH Bruce Heppler AUDIO
ABOUT GEORGIA TECH GOLF
Georgia Tech’s golf team is in its 23rd under head coach Bruce Heppler, winning 52 tournaments in his tenure. The Yellow Jackets have won 16 Atlantic Coast Conference Championships, made 28 appearances in the NCAA Championship and been the national runner-up four times. Connect with Georgia Tech Golf on social media by liking their Facebook page, or following on Twitter (@GT_Golf) and Instagram. For more information on Tech golf, visit Ramblinwreck.com.
