Scottsdale, Ariz. – Bartley Forrester birdied three of his last four holes to shoot 2-under-par 68 Monday, tying for 15th place at the NCAA Men’s Golf Championship, while Georgia Tech posted a final round of 294 (+14) and tied for 12th place on the team leaderboard.
Forrester, whose birdie putt at 18 Sunday lifted the Yellow Jackets over the cut line to make Monday’s final round, played a steady round of golf from the start Monday. The junior from Gainesville, Ga., had one birdie and two bogeys on the front nine and made five straight pars to start the back. Then he hit excellent approach shots into the greens at 15, 17 and 18, all par-4 holes, leaving himself less than 10 feet from the cup on each, and drained the putts.
His individual finish was the best for a Yellow Jacket at the NCAA Championship since 2014, when Ollie Schniederjans was the runner-up and Seth Reeves tied for sixth at Hutchinson, Kan. After tying for 75th place last year, Forrester’s tie for 15th assures him of All-America status.
As a team, Tech’s four counting players played solidly until the last hole, where they lost six shots to par but still tied for 12th. It was the Yellow Jackets’ highest NCAA finish since 2015, when they finished ninth at Bradenton, Fla. The Jackets finished three spots higher than last year on the same golf course, though their score was two strokes higher.
Tech began the day tied for 14th place, paired with the Ole Miss and Oregon in the final round. The Jackets outplayed both teams, with the Rebels finishing 14th and the Ducks 15th, and wound up in a tie with Georgia at the finish with a score of 1171 (+51).
Highlights from Bartley Forrester's round 4 at the NCAA Championship
TECH LINEUP – One of only seven subpar rounds in the field Monday, Forrester’s 68 was the only subpar round of the NCAA Championship for Georgia Tech, completing a 72-hole score of 6-over-par 286.
The Yellow Jackets also counted a pair of 75s Monday from Connor Howe and Christo Lamprecht, and a 76 from Ross Steelman. Lamprecht finished the championship in a tie for 32nd place, 12 spots higher than his 2021 finish, at 289 (+9), while Howe tied for 47th place at 293 (+13). Steelman finished alone in 76th place at 309 (+29).
TEAM LEADERBOARD – Top-seeded Oklahoma, No. 3 Vanderbilt and No. 5 North Carolina finished the team competition in a three-way tie for first place with a 72-hole score of 1134 (+14). Vanderbilt earned the top seed for the match play championship by virtue of having the lowest fifth-player cumulative score, with Oklahoma seeded No. 2 and North Carolina No. 3.
No. 7 Texas (+17). No. 2 Oklahoma State (+21), No. 6 and defending champion Pepperdine (+26), No. 4 Arizona State (+28) and No. 8 Texas Tech (+33) also advanced to the match play championship, which will commence Tuesday morning.
Arkansas (+39), which finished in ninth place, Auburn (+40) and Florida (+40), who tied for 10th, were the closest pursuers.
INDIVIDUAL LEADERBOARD – The individual national champion came down to a four-man playoff between Parker Coody of Texas, Ryan Burnett of North Carolina, Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra of Oklahoma State and Gordon Sargent of Vanderbilt, each of whom finished 72 holes at even-par 280. Sargent, the 54-hole leader, won the national championship with a birdie on the first playoff hole.
They finished one stroke ahead of another group of four players at 1-over-par 281 – Cameron Sisk of Arizona State, William Mouw of Pepperdine, David Ford of North Carolina and Chris Gotterup of Oklahoma.
Mateo Fernandez De Oliveira of Arkansas (+2) and Sam Bennett of Texas A&M (+3) rounded out the top 10 on the leaderboard.
"Bartley was phenomenal today, and it was hard out there. That was big-time golf for him today. [As a team] we’ve got to learn how to finish. Today they played pretty well again all day long, and then we make a triple, a double and a bogey on the last hole. It could’ve been a lot better. That’s what experienced and older guys do. It was a sour finish. For 17 holes we played as well as anybody today. We took a step forward from last year, but we have to be able to stop the run of bad holes."
Head coach Bruce Heppler
"You’ve just got to stay patient. The wind and where they have the pins and how dry the greens are, you really can’t fire at the pins and be too aggressive. So you just stay within yourself, keep the ball in front of you and hit as many fairways and greens as you can. Eventually you get a few putts to drop. I feel like I’ve been putting good rolls on putts, and eventually they just started going in at the end. In the fourth round here last year I did not play well at all, and to play as solidly as I did here today is really gratifying."
Bartley Forrester on his round Monday and his performance at the NCAA Championship.
Round 4 Gallery
Photos by Tim Cowie/Todd Drexler Photography
TECH’S NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP HISTORY – Georgia Tech has reached the NCAA Championship finals 30 times since 1985 (31 times in program history), which is tied for fifth most in that time period behind Oklahoma State (36), Arizona State (34), Florida (33) and Texas (33), each of whom are in the field in Scottsdale. Tech has posted nine top-8 finishes in the last 15 tries.
The Yellow Jackets have qualified for match play four times since the advent of the stroke-play/match-play format in 2009, finishing third in 2010, second in 2011, second in 2013, fifth in 2014. Coincidentally, Tech last advanced to match play (2014) the same year it last captured a regional title.
Tech lost to the eventual champion three times in its four appearances in match play – Augusta State by the score of 3-2 in the quarterfinals in 2010 and 2011 and to Alabama (3-0-2) in 2013.
Tech has been the runner-up in the NCAA Championship four times (1993, 2000, 2002 and 2005, all before the introduction of match play). Only Oklahoma State, which has 18, Texas (6) and Purdue (5) have more.
Three Tech players have won national collegiate championships. Troy Matteson did it most recently in 2002 at Ohio State. Watts Gunn (1927) and Charlie Yates (1934) won national collegiate titles under a match play format before the NCAA took sponsorship of the championship in 1939.
CHAMPIONSHIP INFORMATION/FORMAT – Finals play consists of three days of stroke play on Friday, May 27 thru Sunday, May 29 (54 holes), after which the top 15 teams and nine individuals not on an advancing team will be determined. That is followed by a final day of 18 holes of stroke play on Monday, May 30 to determine the top eight teams that will advance to match play as well as the 72-hole individual champion. The team national champion will be determined by a match-play format that will consist of quarterfinals and semifinals conducted on Tuesday, May 31, followed by finals on Wednesday, June 1.
The entire championship is conducted on the Raptor course at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., which measures 7,289 yards and plays to a par of 70. Grayhawk will host the NCAA Championship again in in 2023.
Great finish today for Bartley Forrester. Three birdies in the last four holes for a 2-under-par 68, best round of the #NCAAGolf Championship for Tech. He finishes as low Yellow Jacket at 286 (+6). #GoJackets pic.twitter.com/d7LEvOTFLu
— Georgia Tech Golf (@GTGolf) May 30, 2022
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Georgia Tech’s golf team is in its 27th year under head coach Bruce Heppler, winning 70 tournaments in his tenure. The Yellow Jackets have won 18 Atlantic Coast Conference Championships, made 29 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 (@GTGolf) and Instagram. For more information on Tech golf, visit Ramblinwreck.com.
