Greaser’s Excellent Golf Adventure Comes Full Circle This Week At Olympia Fields

Austin Greaser was standing in the 18th fairway on the Olympia Fields North Course staring at a likely playoff at best and the possibility of even losing the golf tournament. The University of North Carolina junior, still in pursuit of his first collegiate win, had teed off on the final hole of the 2021 Olympia Fields/Fighting Illini Invitational with a one-shot lead but drove his ball right. Way, way, right.
 
So far right he was forced to chip his second shot back to the fairway, which is when he asked Andrew DiBitetto where he stood on the leaderboard. Carolina’s head coach told him he had a one-shot lead over several players, but one of them, his playing partner Cameron Sisk, a two-time All-America from Arizona State, was already on the front of the green in two.
 
Admittedly not one to lack for confidence of what he can do with a golf club in his hands, Greaser calmly stepped up and hit a knockdown 7-iron into the wind, 168 yards from the hole. His ball landed on the green and rolled into the cup for a birdie 3 to clinch a two-shot win for Greaser and a three-shot victory for the Tar Heels over a top-heavy field that included the Sun Devils, eventual NCAA champion Texas, defending national champion Pepperdine and Oklahoma State.
 
The Vandalia, Ohio, native had won numerous junior tournaments prior to enrolling at Carolina in the fall of 2019, but Olympia Fields, annually one of the top events on the men’s golf circuit, was his first as a collegiate medalist.
 
“It was one of those weeks when I made my first-ever hole-in-one and then I make the shot to win,” says Greaser. “Winning is tough in golf and that week I had two things go my way where I could sit and hit thousands of balls from those spots and never make another shot. Sometimes when you win you get a couple of good breaks and for me that was finally the breakthrough moment, like I can win against the best amateurs in the world. It was big for me to finally get a win under my belt after a lot of close finishes.”
 
Greaser came to UNC as the 10th-ranked player in his class, a quarterfinalist in the 2019 U.S. Junior Amateur and a Rolex Junior All-America.
 
He now enters his senior season as a Tar Heel as one of the top amateurs in the world with credentials that include two All-Atlantic Coast Conference, honorable mention All-America and All-East Region…