It is no easy task bringing a college golf team together with the prospect of team qualifying looming overhead. That’s why Carter Collins, Georgia Southern head coach, decided this year to distance his men from all that – quite literally.
The Eagles’ fall season began in the mountains of North Carolina, with a trip that was not so much about the golf as it was mountain climbing and waterfall chasing.
“Qualifying is such a tense, anxious environment and it’s really hard to build legit team chemistry because they’re all really worried about where they stack up on the team,” Collins said. “So when we’re able to take these trips together and we’re not focused on what you’re shooting, how you’re playing, you’re just focused on you as a person and getting along with other people, I think there’s tremendous benefit in it and I’m really glad we did it.”
Collins welcomed two new transfers on the team this season after losing two players in the portal at the end of last season and graduating two others. After a few days away, he thinks this Georgia Southern team knows itself better than it ever has at this point in the season. That went a long way in securing a season-opening win on Tuesday at the Golfweek Fall Challenge.
And for proof of how this team supports each other, consider the commotion that occurred on True Blue Golf Club’s 18th green. When Harrison Sewell, a standout junior college transfer from Midland College, holed an 8-footer to secure the one-shot win over a hard-charging North Alabama team, his teammates erupted in cheers from the clubhouse balcony off the right of the green.
Georgia Southern had never competed at the long-running event on Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, but Collins was looking to fill the fall schedule with fewer trips north and landed on this event.
“We just wanted to stay south and hopefully dodge a hurricane and hopefully play a good golf course.”
Check both boxes and add a team win.
True Blue is a scoreable golf course with wide fairways. Because his players vary so much in length through the bag, Collins tends not to pick clubs to put in their hands, especially off the tee. He did talk to them about placement.
“The trick for True Blue for us was the fairways are so wide, it’s easy to kind of fall in love with hitting everything as far as you want to because it’s kind of hard to miss some of those fairways,” he said. “But we tried really hard to pick the correct side of the fairway to be in to have the best angle into the green. When they picked out the best angle and what they wanted into the green, the club kind of picked itself.”
Georgia Southern was 35 under for 54 holes. Sewell won the individual title at 14 under. Collins watched the sophomore stoically work his way around the golf course.
“He was in or around the lead for most of the tournament, you could never tell, his emotions never changed,” Collins said.
Sewell holed a 6-footer for birdie on No. 17 for Georgia Southern to remain two ahead of North Alabama and then on No. 18, a par 4 with a green guarded by water, hit his approach out of a divot and ended up over the green. He chipped it to 8 feet and, after calling in Collins for consultation, calmly made the putt to secure the team and individual win.
“I felt like I was talking to someone in the first round, not standing on the 18th green trying to win their first Division I college tournament,” Collins said. “He buried the putt and the team went crazy, he was just very stoic throughout all of it.”
Behind Sewell, transfer Morgan Blythe from Miami of Ohio finished tied for fourth individually with veteran returner Parker Claxton in a tie for 28th.
Collins saw some built-up angst released in this victory, Georgia Southern’s first stroke-play title since March 2024. The past two seasons have been good, though not quite up to program standards, which is perhaps why this victory was met with such emotion.
“There is nothing like a college team van ride after a win,” Collins said. “The music is blaring, they’re yelling, screaming, the emotions are flying all over the place.”
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