Jackets Host 18th Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate

Alpharetta, Ga. – Ranked No. 9 in the first fall Scoreboard NCAA Golf Ranking, Georgia Tech’s golf team continues its fall season with its home tournament, the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational, which will be contested Friday through Sunday at the Golf Club of Georgia’s Lakeside Course.

Tech has a victory under its collective belt at the Olympia Fields/Fighting Illini Invitational, where the Yellow Jackets bested No. 2 Arizona State by a stroke and a 15-team field that included 11 other top-25 teams, and a pair of eighth-place finishes at the Visit Knoxville Collegiate and the Ben Hogan Collegiate Invitational. Redshirt junior Benjamin Reuter (Naarden, The Netherlands) has been Tech’s top player in terms of scoring average (69.89) with a runner-up finish at Olympia Fields and a tie for 14^th at the Ben Hogan.

The 14-team field includes four teams – Tech, Virginia (7) and Vanderbilt (10) – who advanced to match play at the NCAA Championship last May, and eight teams that competed in stroke play. Ten teams are currently ranked among the top-50 in the Scoreboard rankings. Three of the top 10 players in the World Amateur Golf Ranking – Ben James of Virginia (4), Gordon Sargent (5) and Jackson Van Paris (9) of Vanderbilt are competing.

Tee times begin at 9 a.m. from the first tee and 9:20 a.m. from the 10^th tee both Friday and Saturday. The first groups start at 8:30 a.m. and 8:50 a.m., respectively, for Sunday’s final round.

Head coach Bruce Heppler, in his 30^th year at the helm of the Tech program, has returned four golfers who played significant roles in getting the Yellow Jackets to the semifinals of the NCAA Championship for the second straight year in 2024, including reigning NCAA Champion Hiroshi Tai (Singapore), who became Tech’s fourth national collegiate champion with his one-shot victory last May in Carlsbad, Calif.

Junior Hiroshi Tai won the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational as a freshman. (photo by Clyde Click)

 

TECH LINEUP – Tai, who has won three collegiate tournaments in two years, is on the Fall Watch List for the Fred Haskins Award and has been listed as a pre-season All-American by Golfweek magazine and Golf Channel, leads the five-man contingent for the Yellow Jackets this weekend. The junior from Singapore, who won medalist honors at the 2022 Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate as a freshman, is currently No. 32 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and has finishes of 12^th and sixth among Tech’s three events thus far.

Tai will be joined in the lineup this weekend by Reuter, who is Tech’s top player in the Scoreboard rankings (No. 27), freshman Albert Hansson (Fiskebäckskil, Sweden), who has a sub-71 stroke average in nine rounds and is ranked No. 109 in the WAGR, and sophomores Kale Fontenot (Lafayette, La.) and Carson Kim (Yorba Linda, Calif.), who have played in 14 collegiate events each, and

Redshirt sophomore Brady Rackley IV (Atlanta, Ga.), junior Aidan Tran (Fresno, Calif.) and freshman Didrik Ringvall Bengtsson (Stockholm, Sweden) will be in the field as individuals.

TOURNAMENT INFORMATION – The Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate, formerly called the United States Collegiate Championship, is contested at the Yellow Jackets’ home club. The tournament will be played exclusively on the 7,092-yard, par 72 Lakeside Course, 18 holes each day Friday through Sunday. Competition begins at 9 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and at 8:30 a.m. Sunday. Admission is free all three days.

Eight of the 14 teams competing at the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate played in NCAA Championship last spring, and three (Tech, Vanderbilt, Virginia) reached match play. Ten teams are currently ranked among the top 25 in the Scoreboard NCAA rankings.

The full field (with Scoreboard NCAA Golf ranking in parentheses) – Alabama (11), Charlotte (46), Clemson, Duke (44), East Tennessee State, Georgia Tech (9), Pepperdine (18), Southern California, Stanford (24), Tennessee (17), UCLA (39), Vanderbilt (10), Virginia (7), Washington.

TECH’S GOLF CLUB OF GEORGIA COLLEGIATE HISTORY – Georgia Tech has won the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate twice in the event’s 17-year history, in 2010 and 2012. Three Tech players have won medalist honors. James White, who set tournament records for 18-hole score (62) and 54-hole score (204, broken in 2014), won in 2010, Ollie Schniederjans won in 2013, and Hiroshi Tai followed in 2022.

Clemson (2006, 2009), Oklahoma State (2013, 2017), Southern California (2008, 2019), Texas (2014, 2016) and Virginia (2016, 2023) also have won twice. The Cavaliers captured their second title last fall after sharing the 2016 title with the Longhorns. The tournament was not played in the fall of 2020 due to COVID-19.

The Yellow Jackets finished runner-up the last two years, and have finished in the top five 13 times in 17 years.

 

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Full Steam Ahead

Full Steam Ahead is a $500 million fundraising initiative to achieve Georgia Tech athletics’ goal of competing for championships at the highest level in the next era of intercollegiate athletics. The initiative will fund transformative projects for Tech athletics, including renovations of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (the historic home of Georgia Tech football), the Zelnak Basketball Center (the practice and training facility for Tech basketball) and O’Keefe Gymnasium (the venerable home of Yellow Jackets volleyball), as well as additional projects and initiatives to further advance Georgia Tech athletics through program wide-operational support. All members of the Georgia Tech community are invited to visit atfund.org/FullSteamAhead for full details and renderings of the renovation projects, as well as to learn about opportunities to contribute online.

ABOUT GEORGIA TECH GOLF

Georgia Tech’s golf team is in its 30^th year under head coach Bruce Heppler, winning 73 tournaments in his tenure. The Yellow Jackets have won 19 Atlantic Coast Conference Championships, made 33 appearances in the NCAA Championship and been the national runner-up five times. Follow Georgia Tech Golf on social media by liking their Facebook page, or following on X (@GTGolf) and Instagram. For more information on Tech golf, visit Ramblinwreck.com.