June 10, 2011
Golfweek/Sagarin Index
Golfstat rankings
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech’s golf team, which won the Atlantic Coast Conference championship and finished second at the NCAA Championship, was ranked No. 2 in the final Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, and No. 3 by Golfstat.com, the NCAA’s official ranking system.
The Yellow Jackets, who won the conference title this spring for the fifth time in six years, also finished second in the NCAA East Regional and made it to the match play competition at the NCAA Championship for the second consecutive year, falling to eventual national champion Augusta State in the quarterfinals. Oklahoma State, which finished third in NCAA medal play and lost to Augusta State in the match play semifinals, finished No. 1 in both rankings.
Since 2000, the Yellow Jackets have finished the year ranked in the top 10 of Golfweek’s ratings 10 times in 12 years, twice finishing No. 1. Tech’s lowest ranking during that stretch was the spring of 2010 (No. 14).
Besides the ACC Championship, Tech also won the United States Collegiate Championship and the Yellow Jacket Classic, two tournaments it hosted, finished as the runner-up in three others and in the top five in three more.
“Everybody wants to win at the end, but to finish ranked that high, and three guys finish in the top 10, I’m very proud of what we achieved this year,” said head coach Bruce Heppler, who completed his 16th year at the helm of the Tech golf program and won ACC Coach of the Year honors for the sixth time. “We had four guys make all-conference. We had three seniors graduate, and we an APR of 1000 for the sixth straight year. We won three times. Compared to the other years, it ranks right up there in terms of team and individual accomplishments.”
Three of Georgia Tech’s players finished the year among the nation’s top 20 collegiate golfers in the Sagarin ratings – Kyle Scott ranked No. 8, first-team All-American James White No. 10, and John-Tyler Griffin No. 11 (All three finished inside the top 10 of the Golfstat Cup rankings.) ACC champion Paul Haley finished at No. 57, while freshman Richard Werenski was No. 148. White and Haley each won two events individually this year.
From this group, White (from Acworth, Ga.) and Werenski (South Hadley, Mass.) will return for 2011-12 after a full summer of amateur competition. Working to join them in competition each week will be seniors William Miller of Venetia, Pa., who made it to sectional qualifying in the U.S. Open, and Minghao Wang, who has qualified to play in the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship. Also returning are sophomores Bo Andrews of Raleigh, N.C., and Seth Reeves of Duluth, Ga., who shared medalist honors at the Grub Mart Collegiate in the spring.
Joining the team will be a pair of highly-touted freshmen who enrolled at Tech in January, Ollie Schniederjans of Powder Springs, Ga., ranked among the nation’s top 50 amateur players by Golfweek magazine, and Anders Albertson of Woodstock, Ga.
