It was not a photo finish, though it came as close as possible to one, drama to the end, when the best player on the best team, Florida’s Fred Biondi, stepped up on the 18th hole and delivered the point that gave the Gators a 3-1 victory over Georgia Tech and the NCAA team championship late on Wednesday.

Biondi, with a two-putt par on the 18th green at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, defeated Hiroshi Tai to give Florida their fifth national championship, but first in the match-play era. Biondi, who won the NCAA individual championship on Monday, became the first to win both titles since Aaron Wise of Oregon in 2016.

“It means more than to me than the individual,” Biondi, a native Brazilian, said. “We were bringing it home for the whole Gator nation. It’s so special. I promised when I first got to school I’d work as hard as I could. It’s not just me. It’s everybody. Everyone back home supporting us, it’s so special. It’s everybody and the staff.”

Florida’s Yuxin Lin put the Gators up with a 4&3 victory over Christo Lambrecht in the lead-off match. Late in the proceedings, Florida still had only a single point and the other four matches were tied. Georgia Tech’s Bartley Forrester defeated Matthew Kress on the 20th hole to even the score, though the odds had swung heavily to Florida.

New addition to the lineup ?#GoGators pic.twitter.com/lBlUClReP9

— Gators Golf (@GatorsGolf) June 1, 2023

John DuBois of the Gators followed with a 1-up victory over Connor Howe and Biondi finally closed it out at the 18th hole. Florida’s Ricky Castillo was 1-up on Ross Steelman on the 18th hole, but did not have to complete his match.

For Georgia Tech coach Bruce Heppler, it was yet another strong season that ended in disappointment. This was the 20th Yellow Jackets team he took to the NCAA Championship, yet he is still seeking his first national title, as is Georga Tech.

“We just came up short again,” Heppler said. “The commitment was as good as we’ve ever had. We’ll just keep coming back again.”

It was Florida’s fifth national championship, but first in the match-play era and the first NCAA title for coach JC Deacon.

“We always had the talent, but these guys just had to grow up and they committed to doing it the last three years,” Deacon said. “And they made the ultimate sacrifice to work harder than any team in the country and growing up.

“We were dead yesterday [the Gators trailed Florida State in the semi-finals only to rally and advance to the championship round]. But these guys don’t quit. They are tough son of a guns. I’m proud to be their coach. Holy smokes.”

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Ludvig Aberg of Texas Tech, fresh off clinching the No. 1 spot in the final PGA Tour University rankings to earn a tour card, led a group of five players on Tuesday chosen to receive the 2023 Jack Nicklaus Award. The senior from Eslov, Sweden, was the winner in NCAA Division I after becoming the all-time leader in career victories at Texas Tech with eight.

The Nicklaus Award recognises the national collegiate player of the year in Division I, II, III, NAIA, and NJCAA as selected by the Golf Coaches Association of America. The five players will receive their awards from Nicklaus on Sunday at Muirfield Village Golf Club.

Charles DeLong of Grand Valley State (Michigan), Alex Price of Christopher Newport (Virginia), Easton Johnson of The Master’s (California), and Matthis Lefèvre of New Mexico Junior College also were selected.

“If you look at the resumes of these five players, they have consistently excelled at the highest level this season and have proudly represented their schools,” said Nicklaus, founder and host of this week’s Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village.

Aberg, who also was named recipient of the 2023 Fred Haskins Award on Tuesday, won four times including his second straight Big 12 Championship and the 2023 NCAA Norman Regional and finished in the top eight in nine tournaments this season. He joined 2016 Nicklaus recipient Jon Rahm, the reigning Masters champion, as only the second player to win the Ben Hogan Award multiple times. Aberg has PGA Tour membership in 2023 and ’24 and will make his pro debut at next week’s RBC Canadian Open.

DeLong was the Division II selection after winning a programme-record seven tournaments and leading Division II in adjusted scoring average (69.70) to earn Ping First-Team All-America honours. A redshirt sophomore from DeWitt, Michigan, DeLong has 13 individual victories, a school record.

In Division III, Price recorded three wins and two runner-up finishes among eight top-fives this season. The senior from Hillsboro, Virginia, finished T-2 at the NCAA Division III National Championship and topped his own single-season school record for lowest scoring average by almost three strokes at 69.96. He became the first player at Christopher Newport to be named All-American four times, including the first team twice.

Johnson won the 2023 NAIA men’s individual national title for his first collegiate victory to cap a season in which he finished in the top 11 in all 11 starts this season and earned Ping First-Team All-American honours. The playoff victory helped the freshman from Kansas City, Missouri, sew up the NAIA Phil Mickelson Outstanding Freshman Award.

The top-ranked player in NJCAA Division I, Lefevre, a sophomore from Hossegor, France, won four times and finished no worse than ninth in all 12 tournament starts. He already owns the programme record for career wins and was named a Ping First-Team All-American. He plans to continue his collegiate golf career next season at Texas Christian.

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When Florida senior Fred Biondi rolled in his final putt to secure the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championship on Monday, Georgia Tech’s Ross Steelman stood in the shade of a video board and sportingly clapped for the winner. Inside, Steelman must have been feeling a heavy churn of emotions. Yes, he’d lost the individual title to a golfer who trailed him by five shots at the beginning of the round at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona. But in many ways, Steelman had truly climbed to a higher peak.

With his tie for second, the Missouri native jumped from No. 6 to No. 4 in the PGA Tour University rankings, and that could have an enormous impact in the early stages of his professional career.

Texas Tech’s Ludvig Aberg already had the PGA Tour U title wrapped up before the NCAAs began, and he officially finished atop the final rankings on Monday night. With the accomplishment, the Swede becomes the first PGA Tour U No. 1 to earn fully exempt status on the PGA Tour, beginning this year and extending through the 2024 season. The Nos. 2 through 5 finishers get some very nice perks themselves. They earned fully exempt Korn Ferry Tour membership for 2023, as well as an exemption to Final Stage of 2023 PGA Tour Q School. They also can accept unlimited PGA Tour sponsor exemptions for the remainder of 2023 and all of 2024.

Steelman is a member of that group, along with Biondi at No. 2, Adrien Dumont De Chassart, of Illinois, at No. 3, and Texas A&M’s Sam Bennett, who tied for 16th at this year’s Masters, at No. 5. The toughest setback was suffered by Pepperdine’s William Mouw, who began the NCAA Tournament in the No. 5 spot and fell to No. 6 when he tied for 40th on Monday.

Ludvig Aberg becomes the first PGA Tour University rankings winner to earn full status on the PGA Tour for the rest of 2023 and 2024. David Cannon

Aberg had what would be considered a poor week in the NCAAs. Not only did the two-time Ben Hogan Award winner and World Amateur No. 1 manage only a T-29 finish during the individual competition, his Red Raiders weren’t one of the eight teams that reached match play. But Aberg, an eight-time winner in college, had already secured the top spot with his strong play throughout the season.

The PGA Tour U Second Team, for those at Nos. 6-10 in the standings, is composed of Mouw, Ryan Burnett (North Carolina), Patrick Welch (Oklahoma), Ricky Castillo (Florida) and Yuxin Lin (Florida). Those players earned conditional Korn Ferry Tour membership for 2023, fully exempt membership on PGA Tour Canada for 2023, an exemption to Second Stage of 2023 PGA Tour Q School, and exempt status through the Latin America Swing of the 2024 PGA Tour Americas season.

The Third Team is made up of those who finished Nos. 11-20. They are Sam Choi (Pepperdine), Travis Vick (Texas), Reid Davenport (Vanderbilt), Derek Hitchner (Pepperdine), Tommy Kuhl (Illinois), Mateo Fernandez de Oliveira (Arkansas), Ben Carr (Georgia Southern), Connor Howe (Georgia Tech), Chase Sienkiewicz (Arizona), and Maximilian Steinlechner (North Carolina State). They earned fully exempt membership on PGA Tour Canada for 2023, an exemption to Second Stage of 2023 PGA Tour Q School, and conditional status through the Latin America Swing of the 2024 PGA Tour Americas season.

The road to the PGA Tour got more inviting for college seniors earlier this year when the tour’s policy board approved the current PGA Tour U process that gives the top players an 18-month runway to begin their pro careers. The changes came about after the tour also instituted significant change to its qualifying process while also creating $20 million designated events with limited fields.

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Some tournaments are won, others are lost, but this time both applied equally, ultimately rendering a verdict in favor of Florida’s Fred Biondi, the new NCAA Men’s Individual national champion.

Biondi, a senior from Brazil, began the final round five shots in arrears of leader Ross Steelman of Georgia Tech at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, a hill too steep to climb without a substantial assist from Steelman, who provided one with bogeys on his final three holes.

Steelman’s closing bogey spree resulted in a final-round score of three-over par 73. Biondi, playing a few holes behind Steelman, played his final five holes in one-under to complete a round of three-under 67, equalling the best score of the day by those finishing in the top 10. He defeated Steelman and Jackson Buchanan of Illinois by one.

“I just stayed really patient, that was the key the whole day today,” Biondi said. “No matter what happened, whether I was hitting good shots or bad shots, was to keep the same attitude, keep my head down and put the best swings I could.”

He was on the sixth hole when he first saw a leaderboard, after which he double-bogeyed the seventh hole. “I had no idea where I stood until the 15th tee,” he said. “I asked and they said I was one back.”

Moments later, he saw he was tied, and then, with three holes to play, he saw he was one ahead. “I just need to par out,” he said. He did so expertly, including a long two-putt par on the 18th green for the victory. He completed 72 holes in seven-under 273 to become the third player in Florida history to win the individual championship, joining Bob Murphy in 1966 and Nick Gilliam in 2001. Moreover, he became the first player from South America to win the title.

Steelman’s demise included one bad break, when he laid up with his tee shot on the short par-4 17th. His ball came to rest in a sand-filled divot that ultimately led to a second straight bogey. Then on 18, he blistered a drive, then pushed his second shot from only 135 yards right of the green and nearly into the water. A difficult chip and two putts later, he was down one and had to await his verdict.

Steelman seemed to take the loss in stride and will pivot immediately to the eight-team match play competition that will begin on Tuesday morning. Georgia Tech finished tied for fifth. North Carolina finished first, two shots ahead of Florida and Illinois. The other qualifiers were Pepperdine, Florida State, Virginia and Arizona State.

Top-seeded Vanderbilt, in the upset of the competition, failed to advance, tying for 11th and finishing nine strokes back of Arizona State.

Ludvig Aberg of Texas Tech, No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings, also had a disappointing tournament, finishing tied for 29th in his final amateur event. He finished first in the PGA Tour University standings, giving him a tour exemption for the rest of this year and all of next season.

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To make the 54-hole stroke-play cut at this week’s NCAA Championship, Oregon needed to make up seven shots on the teams sitting just inside the top 15 bubble, Stanford and Brigham Young, during Sunday’s third round at Grayhawk Golf Club. The Ducks also had to do it with a new player in their line-up, Gabriel Hari, after a freak injury forced junior Greg Solhaug to withdraw in the middle of the second round on Saturday.

According to a report from Golfweek that was later confirmed by the school, Solhaug had a tee that he stepped on while playing the 11th hole go through his shoe and impale his foot. It was serious enough that he had to withdraw from the tournament; he was two-over on his round at the time.

With Solhaug unable to finish, the Ducks had to count Greyson Leach’s seven-over 77 in Round 2.

“I’ve been in golf nearly 50 years and have never seen anything like that,” said Oregon men’s coach Casey Martin. “He was in a lot of pain.”

Oregon completed the second round with four players, but per NCAA rules can substitute another golfer into its starting line-up for the remainder of the championship.

Unfortunately for the Ducks, they couldn’t turn their momentum around on Sunday, posting 19-over 299 to fall five spots and finish in 27th place, 16 strokes out of 15th and 48 shots back of 54-hole leader Illinois.

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Still, as the golf world gets used to the changes, there was still something unusual to the announcement that the 22-year-old Tar Heel senior made on Tuesday, revealing that he had signed an agreement to work with Excel Sports Management to represent him moving forward — despite still having one semester to go as a college and amateur golfer career.

Greaser, a two-time All-American who played in the Masters (MC) and the US Open (T-61) this year after finishing runner-up at the 2021 US Amateur, said he’s not looking so much for Excel to help line up more NIL deals between now and the NCAA Championship in May (he currently has one arrangement with TaylorMade). Rather, he is looking for the company, overseen by Mark Steinberg with Lance Young working as his principle manager, to help him work out off-the-course details to prepare for the next step: professional golf.

“I wanted to put myself around a group of guys that is out there doing what I want to do and being very successful at it,” says Greaser. Excel’s golf roster including Tiger Woods, Justin Thomas, Matt Fitzpatrick and Collin Morikawa among others. “I think in that way I can really further my game and get better and better and hopefully learn a lot from those guys and get to be around them maybe a little bit more. I think that’s kind of one of the reasons I chose to go with Excel. Just the experience and the talent within this group is a lot. There is a lot here, and it’s pretty special.”

By taking this step in November, Greaser hopes to be able to focus more on the short-term task at hand: finishing his college career by bringing a national title to Chapel Hill and improving his prospects in the PGA Tour University ranking in order to earn a place to play come next summer.

The Tar Heels proved one of the top teams during the autumn semester, winning four out of five events to rise to No. 5 in the most recent Bushnell Golf Golfweek Coaches’ poll. Greaser missed the first tournament of the autumn while playing for the US at the World Amateur Team Championship, but returned to post two top-fives and finish no worse than T-20 while carding a 70.75 stroke average.

“I mean we have a really, really baller team this year,” Greaser says, with teammates David Ford, Ryan Burnett, Dylan Menante and Peter Fountain all also sporting sub-72 stroke averages in the autumn. “Everybody works really hard and everybody is really, really good.”

Meanwhile, the Vandalia, Ohio, native is No. 2 on the PGA Tour University rankings as the winter break approaches. PGA Tour U is another development that’s taken place since Greaser entered college. In its third year, the programme rewards college seniors who have stayed in school by giving them a path to PGA Tour affiliated tours.

Currently the top five on the PGA Tour U ranking earn membership on the Korn Ferry Tour immediately after the NCAA Championship. Those ranked Nos. 6-10 earn conditional status and those ranked Nos. 11-20 earn eligibility on PGA Tour Canada or PGA Tour Latinoamerica. However, the PGA Tour Policy Board is set to discuss next week a change to the programme that would give the top ranked players membership on to the PGA Tour come June. Those familiar with the discussions believe the change will be approved and in place for the 2023 season.

“The fact we have a path now from college to Korn Ferry or PGA Tour, or both, is unbelievable,” Greaser says. “Before you could win every college event and you still have to climb the ranks like everybody else. So in that manner I’m extremely grateful for it and it’s obviously given myself and others playing for it an opportunity that wasn’t here just a few years ago, and have got to take an advantage of it.”

Another option available to Greaser that wasn’t around when he started school: LIV Golf. James Piot, who defeated Greaser in the US Amateur final at Oakmont in 2021 signed with the circuit for its inaugural season last summer, as did a pair of college All-Americans in Eugenio Chacarra and David Puig. In just his fifth LIV start, Lopez-Chacarra pulled out a victory in Bangkok and earned $4 million.

Greaser sees the money that’s available on the LIV circuit, but says that he has not been approached by LIV officials and doesn’t have interest. “I think I have mixed feelings about it but at the end of the day my focus is on the PGA Tour. I feel like it’s always been there,” Greaser says. “I’m in a good spot in this PGA Tour U system. I think if I can play how I want to play in the spring that will get me where my focus is, which is the PGA Tour.”

In turn, Greaser’s attention now turns to working on his game — he’s among the longest hitters in college golf and compliments it with an impressive short game — and finishing up his class work to graduate with a degree in sports administration in the spring. Along, of course, with enjoying his last semester of college golf.

“I going to do my best to enjoy my time here at UNC,” Greaser says. “I can’t believe it’s already over. I just want to enjoy the team, the special bond I have here with the guys and the time I’m getting to spend with them that I realistically probably will never get to spend with them again.”

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“How I played in Q-School definitely aided the decision and made it a little bit easier,” Pano said. “Timing was a big thing, too. I knew I wanted to play in the Augusta Women’s Amateur. My biggest goal, ever since they announced ANWA, was to make the cut. There was no way I could turn professional without accomplishing that.”

When Pano did achieve her goal of playing the final round of ANWA — the only round of the tournament that is played at Augusta National — the next step in her career was inevitable. The 64th ranked amateur in the world has competed in all of junior and amateur golf’s top individual tournaments, as well as prestigious team events such as the Junior Ryder Cup and Junior Solheim Cup, which she says she’ll miss the most.

The timing of Pano’s decision makes sense considering the conclusion of the ANWA and her Epson Tour status. However, as soon as the news broke of the 17-year-old’s announcement, chatter began circulating: Why was the high-profile junior bypassing college?

Pano’s answer involves a rule change in NCAA recruiting that took effect on May 1, 2019. The update in regulations stated that athletic prospects could no longer take scheduled unofficial visits with college coaches until their junior year of high school. Before the NCAA put this rule into effect, players could reach out to coaches, speak to them and organise campus visits regardless of the student’s age. The rule was instituted to reduce early recruiting and give students time to make informed decisions about where they’d like to attend college.

“Before they changed the rules, when I was 12-, 13- and 14-years-old, I did do college visits. I’ve been super lucky to have been able to meet a lot of coaches,” Pano said. “I’ve actually discussed this with my dad quite a bit: If the rules hadn’t changed, I think I might have ended up committing to a college pretty early, around 14- or 15-year-old. But it turned out that the rule change gave me more time to think about my options, and that was a really good thing for me.”

For Pano, the NCAA’s new regulation served its intended purpose in giving a young athlete time to make an informed decision about her future. Just in this case, it didn’t lead her to making a decision about where to go to college — it led to her choosing to not go to college at all. Had Pano been enticed by more Division I programs as just a middle-schooler, her path may have looked different. Despite this detail, the star amateur maintains that her decision is the right one.

“Everyone has the best plan for them,” Pano said. “For some people that may be college golf, and so many people do amazing in college and then go on to do amazing things in their professional careers. But for me, turning pro now is what I think is going to work out the best.”

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Kyle Hogan picked the perfect time to pick up his first NCAA win at the Maridoe Collegiate, claiming also the exemption into next month’s Houston Open that came with first place. But the senior’s big breakthrough seems even more improbable when examing what led to it.

Hogan hadn’t qualified for either of Texas Tech’s first two events of the season. And in this third tournament, he still wasn’t part of the squad’s starting five, but playing as an individual instead.

But after rounds of 74, 68, and 73, Hogan was the only golfer to finish under par at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas. He won after Oklahoma State star Austin Eckroat bogeyed the final hole.

https://twitter.com/TexasTechMGolf/status/1318689085825961994

Hogan is currently No. 323 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and he has never cracked the top 300. And as Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine pointed out, Hogan only beat one player in a field of 264 at the U.S. Amateur just two months ago. But in two weeks (Nov. 5-8), he’ll make his PGA Tour debut at the Vivint Houston Open. Quite a turnaround.

Oklahoma State won the event while Texas Tech only finished eighth out of 12 schools with Hogan’s score not counting toward the team’s score. It’s probably a pretty safe bet that won’t be the case when the Red Raiders play next.

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As part of the decision, schools will be responsible for the financial costs associated with keeping on the student-athletes. Schools will have the option to provide equal or less aid to seniors who decide to return for the 2020-’21 season and had otherwise exhausted their eligibility, with the NCAA’s Student Assistance Fund available for schools to help finance the scholarships.

“The Council’s decision gives individual schools the flexibility to make decisions at a campus level,” said University of Pennsylvania athletic director M. Grace Calhoun, who chairs D-I council. “The Board of Governors encouraged conferences and schools to take action in the best interest of student-athletes and their communities, and now schools have the opportunity to do that.”

How the vote might impact the decision of some of college golf’s top-ranked seniors is unclear. U.S. Amateur champion Andy Ogletree and runner-up John Augenstein, seniors at Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt, respectively, have both indicated it is unlikely they would return to their schools. Each had expected to play as amateurs at the Masters and turn professional after the NCAA Championship in May. However, with pro tours on hold due to the coronavirus (and uncertainty over what happens when play resumes), turning pro in the summer and hoping to play on sponsor’s exemptions might be a more challenging prospect than previously expected for college golfers.

“It’s come up in conversations about going back, but that would probably be the last option,” Augenstein recently told Global Golf Post. “That may happen only if it’s the worst-case scenario. Just like when you get done with high school, you want to move on. That’s kind of how I feel.”

Andy Ogletree, John Augenstein
USGA (2)

However, making a return to school more attractive for some top players is an unusual carrot. The 2021 Walker Cup is set for next May at Seminole Golf Club in Florida. Given the unusually early date, and the potential difficultly of getting starts on the PGA Tour or Korn Ferry Tour, some players might go back to school to play for their schools another year and perhaps earn a spot on the U.S. team before then turning pro after the 2021 NCAA Championship.

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