CARLSBAD, Calif. – When the clock struck 5 o’clock on Monday afternoon at the NCAA Championship, it was absolute chaos.
Not only were five teams tied for sixth in the race for the eight, but a potential playoff was brewing to determine the individual national champion. Stanford and Tennessee were in the clubhouse at 2 under, where they were joined by Arizona, North Carolina and UCLA, who were all just trying hang on over the last handful of holes, the Tar Heels on the front side and Wildcats and Bruins on the back.
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Oklahoma State junior Preston Stout, the world’s third-ranked amateur chasing his fifth win this spring but the biggest title of his career, birdied his final after some late hiccups to finish at 14 under, then had to wait to see what Alabama sophomore William Jennings in the final group of individuals wrapping on the front.
Jennings, the former top-ranked high-schooler who last spring shot 92 in a tournament before reviving his game to win three times this season, carded seven birdies on Monday, including one at the par-3 eighth to pull even with Stout. But the threat soon ended, as Jennings couldn’t get up and down for par at the ninth.
Watching the coverage on a phone from the driving range, Stout exhaled when he saw Jennings miss his comeback putt to force extras, then wrapped his arms around assistant Donnie Darr. Stout has now won eight times in three years, three of those coming at the Big 12 Championship as Stout just weeks ago became the first player in that conference’s history to three-peat.
“Major relief,” said Stout, who led by five shots before bogeys at Nos. 12, 14 and 17 made things interesting. Still, Stout posted the lowest winning score in relation to par in over 25 years at this championship, since former Cowboy Charles Howell III fired an NCAA-record 23 under in 2000.
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“I feel like it hasn’t hit me yet, honestly,” Stout continued. “It was just such an up-and-down day. I was playing really well there first 11 holes, and then the putter kind of left me there for a little bit, which made it difficult. … I was pretty stressed out there.”
While Stout accepted his trophy, the 10th such hardware in program history and first since Matthew Wolff seven years ago, the pressure was still building at Omni La Costa, where the craziest playoff in the match-play era’s 17 years – four teams for two spots – was about to commence.
Arizona avoided overtime thanks to 18th-hole birdies by Zach Pollo and Tianyi Xiong. Same for Florida, which shot the round of the day by eight shot (12 under) and jumped a dozen spots the last 36 holes to T-4 alongside Oklahoma State.
Stanford and Tennessee each rose six places to get into the playoff while UCLA, the Big Ten champ for the second straight year, held on despite playing the last five holes in 10 over. North Carolina was on the ropes before freshman Carson Bertagnole rolled in a 10-footer for birdie at the ninth to keep the Tar Heels’ season alive.
There have been team playoffs before at nationals, including a 4-for-3 showdown outside of Atlanta in 2013, but nothing this intense. The get-in score for extras of 2 under marked the lowest match-play cut ever by four shots.
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With each team sending players out to Nos. 1, 15, 16, 17 and 18, everyone would have to count in the aggregate format, even North Carolina’s Andrew Riley, whose 15 over through 72 holes beat only four of the 83 players who advanced to Monday.
Riley drew the par-3 16th hole, playing 162 yards to a tucked left pin over water. But when he took his swing, his 8-iron stuck heavy into the turf, producing a ball speed of just 91 mph and a tee shot that splashed in the middle of the pond about 50 yards short of the green.
Crazy enough, that wasn’t even the worst shot of the evening. That belonged to Tennessee’s Josh Hill, who cold-shanked an iron off the 15th tee, his ball coming out low and right, skipping off a front tee box and into the junk.
Both Riley and Hill double-bogeyed their holes while the rest of their teammates carded pars. Each at 2 over for the playoff, North Carolina and Tennessee saw their seasons end in a matter of minutes. UCLA posted 1 over to earn the seventh seed, determined by the low drop score, while Stanford shot even par thanks to the only birdie of overtime, a short make at the par-5 18th by Dean Greyserman.
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“My knees were shaking,” said Greyserman, the younger brother of PGA Tour player Max Greyserman. “That was a quick putt, right edge, 4 feet, straight downhill. Just got it going, and thankfully, it rolled in.”
Stanford advanced to match play for the first time since 2019, when the Cardinal won it all, while UCLA is back in the knockout stage for the first time since 2015. Both schools have been riding some serious momentum. The Bruins were under .500 in early March before rattling off two runners-up and a win. The Cardinal dismissed former top recruit TK Chantananuwat before the ACC Championship because of a violation of team rules, then went out and took the stroke-play title at conference before placing second at regionals.
“I’m just so overflowing with emotion right now,” UCLA head coach Armen Kirakossian said. “The last three hours have been crazy. We had a huge cushion to make match play and then a colossal collapse coming down the stretch, but I’ll tell you what, I’ll give credit to our guys. You could have been big-time discouraged after that, but they weren’t. They came out and they were fired up and ready.”
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“It’s been a crazy ride for this last month. … We were not playing great golf and were getting our butts kicked. The guys knew it. It’s on them, and they just got together and figured it out.”
Now, the Bruins will have to figure out Texas. Stanford gets top-ranked Auburn.
History hasn’t been kind to teams that get through sudden death, as no schools in the five occasions where there has been a playoff have gone on to win in the quarterfinals. The good news for Stanford and UCLA, though, is every year since 2019, the NCAA team champion did not qualify for match play the year prior; both programs fall into that category, as do Arizona and Vanderbilt, who face each other on Tuesday morning.
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“Exciting for our guys to sneak in there,” Ray said. “No one has been talking about our team, which makes it really fun to have a shot at the No. 1 seed and play the underdog. Our guys have worked hard all year, and we’ve had a great spring, and I think they’re ready to go, so we will see what happens.”
If Tuesday is half as chaotic as Monday, it’ll be fireworks.
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