The season ended for the Lee University men on Wednesday after 54-holes of the NCAA Division II Men's Golf Championship being played on the PGA National Resort course. The Flames needed to finish in the top eight but their final 884 was only good enough for 12th place.
Wednesday’s round was up and down, and Lee finished with a 296 to go along with an opening round of 287 and a 301 on Tuesday. The Flames did bring home one of the top individual trophies when Drew Zielinski finished in a four-way tie for second place after he fired a 3-under par 69 to go along with his opening round of 72 and his 2-under 70 on Tuesday for a tally of 211.
Zielinski always comes up with an exciting round worth noting.
He began the back nine on Wednesday with an eagle at No.10, but later gave the two shots back with a double bogey on No.15. His round consisted of an eye-catching five birdies and two bogeys.
The Flames’ scoring was hampered by two triple bogeys and three double bogeys by the top four individual scores that counted. Luke Stock had the round of the day. His well-crafted play consisted of a par on No. 10 and then six straight pars on holes 12-17. His birdies came at No. 11 and 18. He fired a 2-under 34 score on both nines for his team’s best, 4-under 68.
Bennett McNabb got off to a solid start on the front with an even par-36, but struggled on the back side, posting a 5-over 41 and totaling a 77. The other two Lee players, Mitchell Strickland had it going early but finished with an 82 while George Cordall encountered more than his share of trouble with an 87 tally.
Hunter Smith of the University of North Georgia captured the medalist title. He had and even-par 72 in the final round and a 210 finish while Colton Swartz (Florida Southern College), Brandon Skidmore (Wingate University) and SanghaPark (Colorado Christian University) were deadlocked with Zielinski at 211.
Play continues on Thursday with Colorado Christian leading the way with its 54-hole total of 856. The University of West Florida is two strokes back at 858, Missouri S&T University slipped to 863, followed by Florida Southern 866 and North Georgia 867.
Coach Evan Spence’s thoughts:
“This part of the season never gets any easier. Every year there is only one team in the country that does not experience this feeling in some capacity and unfortunately, this year that team is not going to be us. I am proud of this team for the fight they continually showed all year long and for accomplishing some great things. We set multiple new program-scoring records as a team this year and qualified for our fifth straight National Championship. That’s certainly something to be proud of although I know we all were hoping for just a bit more.
As far as today goes, it really felt like we were going to get it done at several points throughout the day. We had several guys get hot in the middle of their rounds and we made a huge push up the board but unfortunately just stumbled a bit down the stretch. Drew continued his awesome play today and is getting rewarded with an individual runner-up (medalist) finish in the National Championship and I am extremely proud of him and the season he has had. No doubt we will be back here again soon and we will do everything we can to push through that top 8 and have a chance to take the big trophy home.”