While the same dominant teams and individuals remain near the top, their order continues to shuffle as the NCAA DI Men’s Golf Championship progresses. Texas Tech made quite a run for the cut, shooting the second-best round today of 3-under as a team and moving up 11 spots on the leaderboard; unfortunately, they were 4 strokes short.
After today’s round, the field will narrow down to 15 teams and 9 individuals, who are the top scorers from the last three days that aren’t on the top 15 teams. With a three-way tie in 7th place among the individuals, there will be a playoff tomorrow morning to determine which two men will be able to continue competing.
Tomorrow, the individual champion will be named and the top 8 teams will advance to match play on Tuesday.
2024 NCAA DI Men’s Golf Championship Scores After Round 3
Below are the overall leaders after the third day at Omni La Costa.
Team Leaderboard
1. Illinois (-2)
2. Virginia (+4)
3. Vanderbilt (+9)
4. Florida State (+10)
5. Ohio State (+13)
T6. North Carolina (+15)
T6. Auburn (+15)
8. Florida (+20)
T9. Arizona (+21)
T9. Georgia Tech (+21)
11. Texas (+23)
12. Baylor (+24)
13. Oklahoma (+25)
T14. Tennessee (+27)
T14. East Tennessee State (+27)
—————————————- (cutline)
16. Wake Forest (+29)
17. Texas Tech (+31)
18. LSU (+39)
19. California (+40)
T20. Texas A&M (+41)
T20. Stanford (+41)
22. Clemson (+42)
T23. Oklahoma State (+43)
T23. Notre Dame (+43)
25. Utah (+45)
26. SMU (+46)
27. West Virginia (+48)
28. New Mexico (+48)
29. North Florida (+57)
30. Purdue (+60)
Top 10 Individuals on the Leaderboard
1. Adam Wallin (Ohio State, -5)
T2. Ben James (Virginia, -3)
T2. Karl Vilips (Stanford, -3)
T4. Gordon Sargent (Vanderbilt, -2)*
T4. Hiroshi Tai (Georgia Tech, -2)
T7. Max Herendeen (Illinois, -1)
T7. Tyler Goecke (Illinois, -1)
T7. Christiaan Maas (Texas, -1)
T7. Luke Clanton (Florida State, -1)*
T7. Johnny Keefer (Baylor, -1)
T7. Jackson Koivun (Auburn, -1)*
Top 9 Individuals Advancing to Round 4
1. Karl Vilips (Stanford, -3)
T2. Connor Gaunt (LSU, E)
T2. Ben Warian (Minnesota, E)
4. Palmer Jackson (Notre Dame, +1)
T5. Calum Scott (Texas Tech, +2)
T5. Nick Mathews (NC State, +2)
T5. Nick Gabrelcik (North Florida, +2)
T7. Andrew Swanson (Clemson, +4)
T7. Braxton Watts (Utah, +4)
T7. Ethan Evans (Duke, +4)
Since there is a 3-way tie at 7th place, Swanson, Watts and Evans will be teeing off at 8:30am PDT in a playoff for the final two spots.
Looking Ahead to Round 4
Adam Wallin from Ohio State started us off strong with three birdies on his front nine and closed out the back nine even to take the lead. Virginia’s Ben James, who had been second on the team yesterday, moved up 5 spots into a tie for second after carding a round with 3 birdies and 0 bogeys. Karl Vilips dropped from first after a day where the putts themselves ironically wouldn’t drop.
All three of these men will be battling it out for the individual title, though only Virginia and Ohio State will also have a chance for the team title. Despite Stanford’s dominance in the women’s championship last week, the men’s team will have all their hope on Vilips when it comes to winning titles; though having Stanford senior Michael Thorbjornsen win his PGA Tour card tomorrow from ranking first on the PGA Tour University list isn’t too shabby, either.
Check in with Fairway to Green tomorrow on Instagram (@fairwaytogreen) as we follow the leaders and see which 8 teams will be moving onto the next stage.
