Alpharetta, Ga. – Hiroshi Tai and Carson Kim each shot 3-under-par 69 Sunday, leading No. 9 Georgia Tech to a closing 10-under-par round of 278 and a seventh-place finish at the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational.
Tech got four subpar rounds in the final round at Golf Club of Georgia’s Lakeside Course, and only tournament champion Duke (-17) equaled or surpassed the Yellow Jackets’ score for the day. The Jackets advanced five spots on the leaderboard and finished ahead of such teams at No. 10 Vanderbilt, No. 11 Alabama, No. 17 Tennessee and No. 24 Stanford.
Benjamin Reuter, who tied for 15th place at 3-under-par 213, and Tai, who tied for 17th at 2-under-par 214, both posted top-20 finishes for the Yellow Jackets, who now look ahead to their final fall event, the East Lake Cup on Oct. 28-30 at East Lake Golf Club.
In four events this fall, Tech has a victory 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, a seventh-place finish this weekend and a pair of eighth-place finishes at the Visit Knoxville Collegiate and the Ben Hogan Collegiate Invitational.
The 14-team field at the Golf Club of Georgia included 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-25 in the Scoreboard rankings.
TECH LINEUP – Tai, a junior from Singapore, had a clean card with three birdies Sunday for his best round of the weekend, while Kim, a sophomore from Yorba Linda, Calif., recorded four birdies against a lone bogey.
Reuter, a from Naarden, The Netherlands, and freshman Albert Hansson (Fiskebäckskil, Sweden) shot 2-under-par 70 each on Sunday to deliver the Yellow Jackets’ other two counting scores, while sophomore Kale Fontenot (Lafayette, La.) posted an even-par 72. Hansson tied for 36th place individually at 218 (+2).
Among the three Tech players competing as individuals this weekend, junior Aidan Tran (Fresno, Calif.) closed strong with a 4-under-par 68 and tied for 39th place, while freshman Didrik Ringvall Bengtsson (Stockholm, Sweden) finished with a 70 and posted the top overall finish, tying for 28th place at even-par 216.
Sophomore Carson Kim matched the Jackets’ best round of the day with a 69. (photo by Clyde Click)
TEAM LEADERBOARD – Duke, which shot 17-under-par 281 Sunday, and UCLA (9-under-par 279) engaged in a battle that came down to the last few holes, but the Blue Devils (836, -28) sealed a three-shot victory over the Bruins (839, -25) after scoring a pair of birdies at the par-5 18th hole. Duke rallied from third place after 36 holes to claim the title of the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational for the second time in 12 appearances.
No. 7 Virginia (845, -19), the defending champion which began the day one stroke behind UCLA in second place, posted a 4-under-par total of 284 in the final round and finished in third place.
Charlotte (851, -13), two-time champion Southern California (860, -4), Pepperdine (861, -3) and Tech (862, -2) all finished under par for the tournament.
INDIVIDUAL LEADERBOARD – Duke’s Ethan Evans and Virginia’s Josh Duangmanee battled down to the last hole, tied at 9-under-par, but Evans wound up only needing a par to win medalist honors after Duangmanee hit his tee shot out of bounds and made bogey. Evans played 54 holes in 207 strokes (-9), while Duangmanee finished tied for second place at 208 (-8) with Cavalier teammate Bryan Lee and 36-hole leader Caden Baker of Charlotte, who carded a closing 75.
The Blue Devils’ Kelly Chinn and Pepperdine’s Mahanth Chirravuri posted Sunday’s best round of 6-under-par 66 and finished in a four-way tie for fifth place at 209 (-7).
Round 3 Gallery
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 is played exclusively on the 7,092-yard, par 72 Lakeside Course, 18 holes each day.
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 were ranked among the top 50 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 18-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), Virginia (2016, 2023) and Duke (2019, 2024) also have won twice. The Blue Devils captured their second title last fall. The tournament was not played in the fall of 2020 due to COVID-19. Aside from Tech, East Tennessee State is the only team to play in all 18 editions of the event.
The Yellow Jackets finished runner-up the last two years, and have finished in the top five 13 times in 18 years.
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 30th 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.
