Second-ranked Carolina is the top seed in the 2023 Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Golf Championships, which begin Friday at the Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst.
UNC is paired with Florida State and Georgia Tech, the next two highest seeds, on Friday and tees off the first hole beginning at 8:30 a.m.
The ACC Championship format is 36 holes of stroke play on Friday and another 18 on Saturday. The top four teams after the third round advance to match play with the semifinals set for Sunday and the championship on Monday, both getting underway at 9 a.m.
The Tar Heels are among four ACC teams in Golfstat’s top 20 with No. 6 Florida State, No. 12 Georgia Tech and No. 16 Virginia.
Junior Peter Fountain (Raleigh, N.C.) won the ACC individual title as a freshman in 2021 with a 10-under-par 200 and finished second in 2022 in a playoff with Clemson’s Jacob Bridgeman after shooting 13-under 203. It was the most strokes under par by a Tar Heel in any ACC Championship.
Fountain shot a final-round 66 to win the ’21 ACC title, the first Tar Heel to win the league championship since 2003.
The Tar Heels have finished first in the stroke play portion of the ACC Championship in each of the last two seasons. In 2021, Carolina shot 26-under-par 814, the lowest 54-hole score in UNC men’s golf history.
Last season, Carolina shot 35-under 829, six strokes ahead of Georgia Tech. Both UNC’s 829 total and 35 under par were the second-lowest on a par-72 course in ACC Championship history (Georgia Tech was 37-under 827 in 2019 at the Old North State Club in New London, N.C.).
The 2021 and 2022 ACC Championships marked the first time UNC finished first in stroke play in consecutive ACC Championships since winning the title in 1995 and sharing the championship with Georgia Tech in 1996.
UNC lost in match play in the semifinals in each of the last two seasons – to Florida State in 2021 and Wake Forest in 2022.
The Tar Heels are looking for their 12th ACC title and first since 1996.
Joining Fountain in the Carolina lineup are sophomore David Ford (Peachtree Corners, Ga.), senior Austin Greaser (Vandalia, Ohio), fifth-year senior Ryan Burnett (Lafayette, Calif.) and senior Dylan Menante (Carlsbad, Calif.).
All four have top-10 finishes in their careers in conference play. Burnett tied for fifth in 2021 and 10th…
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