The Gators enjoyed the luck of the Irish in South Bend, Ind., at the Central Regional this past weekend, and finished high enough to earn a bid for the NCAA Championships.
Florida joins first-place Stanford, runner-up FSU, and Duke and LSU who finished in the fourth and fifth spots.
“To finish in third wasn’t exactly what we wanted, but we live to see another day,” UF coach Buddy Alexander said. “It was an interesting week of ebbs and flows, but I think we played solid for the most part. We are happy to be advancing to the next round.”
This is Alexander’s 22nd appearance in the NCAA Championships in his 23 years as UF’s coach.
Florida finished the first day of the Central Regional in second place at 279, -1. Freshman Phillip Choi (69,-1) and junior Bank Vongvanij (68, -2) were the standouts for UF on day one. Vongvanij hit 16 straight pars before sinking back to back birdies to finish the round.
“Bank was terrific, and it was a great round for him,” Alexander said. “We played solid in spite of a shaky start; the team really turned things around on four and five.”
The second day of the tournament was suspended due to inclement weather with all five UF golfers scattered between holes 13 to 16. UF finished the day in fourth place with a score of 506, +5.
The Gators were a couple shots off the bubble, and were encouraged by Alexander to ‘step up and get a good round in’.
After strong finishes earlier that day including the holes from the suspended second day, the Gators played well as they posted a one-under, 279 in the final round and carded a final tournament score of 838, -2.
“By far the biggest and best thing was that we were able to finish off the second round as we did. It gave us cushion going into the final round that we didn’t have,” Alexander said.
