Carlsbad, Calif. – Hiroshi Tai birdied two of his final three holes and carded a 2-under-par 70, leading Georgia Tech to a 6-over-par team total of 294 and a tie for 12th place after 36 holes at the NCAA Men’s Division I Men’s Golf Championship at the Omni LaCosta Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.
The finishing stretch for Tai was critical as the Yellow Jackets (11-over-par 587) battled the afternoon gusty ocean breezes to remain inside the top 15 on the team leaderboard and grab a morning tee time for Sunday’s round 3. The 30-team field will be cut to 15 teams at the end of 54 holes for Monday’s final round of stroke play, and Tech has made that cut each of the last four years. Only four shots separate the teams 11th through 19th on the leaderboard.
Tai, who shot even-par 72 Friday, is tied for 12th place individually at 2-under-par 142 after 36 holes. While his two-round total is two strokes better than 2024, when he won the individual NCAA title, he is seven shots off the lead. The junior from Singapore was tied for seventh place at even-par 144 after 36 holes last year, then shot 70-71 over the last 36 holes to outlast the field.
Round 3 for Tech begins at 8:20 a.m. Pacific Daylight time Sunday, and the No. 20 seed Yellow Jackets will be paired with No. 22 seed Colorado and No. 13 Vanderbilt.
Thirty teams and six individuals are competing over includes 54 holes of stroke play through Sunday, after which the field will be cut to the top 15 teams and the top nine individuals not on those teams for the final 18 holes of stroke play, which will take place Monday. After Monday’s final round of stroke play, the NCAA individual champion will be crowned, and the top eight teams on the leaderboard will continue on to match play.
Highlights from Hiroshi Tai's second round at the NCAA Championship
"It would be awesome. We’ve made it probably three or four years in a row now. I guess this spring hasn’t gone really how we all wanted it to. So it would be really great to end our year on a good note and do our best to make match play happen."
Hiroshi Tai
TECH LINEUP – Tai posted the Yellow Jackets’ only subpar round Saturday, playing the back (first) nine even and the front (second) nine 2-under. Sophomore Carson Kim, who hails from Yorba Linda, Calif., just an hour from Carlsbad, followed his opening-round 70 with a 73 and is tied for 18th place.
Just as critical to Tech’s finish was a birdie at the par-3 8th by freshman Albert Hansson (Fiskebäckskil, Sweden), who carded a 74. Sophomore Kale Fontenot (Lafayette, La.) had the Jackets’ fourth counting score with a 77 (+5), while redshirt junior Benjamin Reuter (Naarden, The Netherlands) posted an 80.
LEADERBOARD SUMMARY – No. 5 Arizona State took advantage of the more benign morning conditions and posted the day’s best round, an 11-under-par 277, with all five Sun Devils breaking par at the LaCosta Resort. They surged into the lead after 36 holes at 13-under-par 563, three strokes ahead of No. 6 Oklahoma (566, -10).
Top-ranked Auburn shot 6-under-par Saturday to move into third place at 568 (-8), followed by No. 7 Florida (-5) and No. 9 Florida State (-1). No. 4 Texas (even), No. 2 Oklahoma State (+2), No. 3 Ole Miss (+4), No. 12 Illinois (+7) and California (+8) round out the top 10.
The next nine teams on the leaderboard are separated by just four strokes. No. 10 Virginia (+10) holds 11th place alone, with the Yellow Jackets, Pepperdine and Colorado tied for 12th (+11). Vanderbilt, Wake Forest and Texas A&M are tied for 15th place (+12), with BYU (+13) and Texas Tech (+14) close behind.
Connor Williams of Arizona State and Michael LaSasso of Ole Miss, who each shot 67 Saturday, are tied for the individual lead at 9-under-par 135, four strokes ahead of the rest of the field.
Post-round interview with Hiroshi Tai
TECH IN THE NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP
Georgia Tech has reached the NCAA Championship finals 33 times since 1985 (34 times in program history), which is the fifth most in that time period behind Oklahoma State (38), Arizona State (36), Florida (36) and Texas (36).
Tech has posted 18 top-8 finishes in the NCAA Championship, 13 of those since Bruce Heppler became the head coach.
The Yellow Jackets have qualified for match play six times since the advent of the stroke-play/match-play format in 2009, finishing third in stroke play in 2010, second in 2011, second in 2013, fifth in 2014, tied for fifth in 2023 and eighth in 2024.
Tech lost to the eventual champion four times in its six appearances in match play, most recently in the championship match against Florida (3-1) in 2023. Tech fell to Augusta State by the score of 3-2 in the quarterfinals in 2010 and 2011 and to Alabama (3-0-2) in the 2013 semifinals.
Tech has been the runner-up in the NCAA Championship five times (1993, 2000, 2002 and 2005 before the introduction of match play, and again in 2023). Only Oklahoma State, which has 18, and Texas (6) have more.
In 1993 and 2002, the Yellow Jackets led after 54 holes, but finished second by one shot to Florida in 1993, and by four shots to Minnesota in 2002.
In 2000, the Yellow Jackets rallied to tie Oklahoma State after 72 holes, but lost to the Cowboys on the first hole of a playoff. Tech and OSU matched the lowest 72-hole team score in NCAA Championship history (36-under-par 1,116) at the Grand National Lake Course in Opelika, Ala. In 2005, Tech finished 11 shots behind Georgia, and seven shots ahead of third-place Washington.
Four Tech players have won national collegiate championships. Hiroshi Tai captured the title in 2024 in Carlsbad, Calif., and Troy Matteson lifted the trophy in 2002 at Ohio State. Watts Gunn (1927) and Charlie Yates (1934) won national titles under a match play format before the NCAA took sponsorship of the championship in 1939.
TECH AND NCAA MATCH PLAY
The 2009 NCAA Championship featured a new twist with the team champion determined via match play. The top eight teams after 54 holes of stroke play advance to a match play tournament format.
The NCAA added a fourth round of stroke play in 2016 for the top 15 teams and nine individuals not on those teams, after which the national individual champion and the top eight teams for match play are determined.
Match play is a format that Tech head coach Bruce Heppler has supported vigorously. Under Heppler, Georgia Tech finished in the top eight of the NCAA Finals seven times in 10 tries under the 72-hole, stroke-play format.
Tech is one of six teams (Oklahoma State 9, Illinois 9, Texas 7, Vanderbilt 7, Oklahoma 6 are the others) to have advanced to match play six or more times in the 16-year history of the stroke play/match play format.
Carson Kim shot 73 Saturday and is tied for 18th place after 36 holes. (photo by Tim Cowie/Todd Drexler Photos)
EVENT DETAILS
NCAA Men’s Division I Golf Championship
- Dates: May 23-28 (72 holes of stroke play, low 4 of 5 scores count for team score each day, to determine individual champion; top 8 teams seeded for match play brackets to determine team champion)
- Venue: Omni LaCosta Resort & Spa, Carlsbad, Calif. (par 72, 7,548 yards)
- Participating teams (in order of seeding): Auburn, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, Texas, Arizona State, Oklahoma, Florida, Florida State, Virginia, Texas A&M, Illinois, UCLA, Vanderbilt, BYU, South Carolina, Pepperdine, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas Tech, Georgia Tech, South Florida, Colorado, UNLV, Purdue, San Diego, Wake Forest, New Mexico, Troy, California, Augusta
- Tech appearances (last appearance): 34th (2024)
- Best finish: runner-up (1993, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2023)
- Individual titles: 4 (Watts Gunn 1927, Charlie Yates 1934, Troy Matteson 2002, Hiroshi Tai 2024)
- Schedule (all times Eastern Daylight Time):
- Sunday – Stroke play round 3, 9:30 a.m.
- Monday – Stroke play round 4, 1:30 p.m.* (Golf Channel coverage, 6-10 p.m.)
- Tuesday – Quarterfinal matches, 9:50 a.m. (Golf Channel coverage, 1-3:30 p.m.)
- Tuesday – Semifinal matches, 4:15 p.m. (Golf Channel coverage, 6-10 p.m.)
- Wednesday – Championship match, 5:25 p.m. (Golf Channel coverage, 6-10 p.m.)
*individual champion crowned, top 8 teams seeded for match play
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.
