Scottsdale, Ariz. – Ross Steelman continued to pace Georgia Tech Saturday by firing a 1-under-par 69 in demanding afternoon conditions, leading the No. 11 seed Yellow Jackets to a 6-over-par 286 score and a tie for third place after 36 holes at the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championship.
Steelman remains atop the individual leaderboard at 7-under-par 133 with a three-stroke lead over Daniel Rodrigues of Texas A&M, who shot 66 Saturday, and Adrien Dumont De Chassart of Illinois, who shot 68. He is bidding to become the second Yellow Jacket to win an NCAA individual championship, following Troy Matteson in 2002. Matteson captured the 2002 title at the Ohio State University Scarlet Course as a member of one of the four Yellow Jacket teams to finish runner-up at the NCAA Championship. Watts Gunn (1927) and Charlie Yates (1934) also won national collegiate titles when the championship was conducted at match play prior to the NCAA taking sponsorship.
Meanwhile, the Yellow Jackets slipped into a third-place tie with No. 2 seed North Carolina at 6-over-par 566 after the Tar Heels posted a 4-over-par round of 284. Illinois took advantage of benign morning conditions to shoot 7-under-par 273 and take the 36-hole lead at 2-under-par 558 and is the only team under par for 36 holes. No. 9 seed Florida shot 278 (-2) and moved into second place at 561 (+1).
Tech has advanced to match play four times at the NCAA Championship, and is looking to do so this week for the first time since 2014 at Hutchinson, Kan.
“It was good, obviously playing in the afternoon is a lot harder than the morning out here,” said Steelman of his round of 69. “So being able to throw up something under-par on the board was pretty big for the individual part as well as kind of giving the team a good block to build on. So we get to play in the morning tomorrow it looks like. It was pretty boring again, a lot of fairways, kind of hit it to 20-feet, roll a couple in and go from there.
“Going and getting some food, ample amounts of coffee tomorrow morning and that’ll be key. We’ll be ready to go, nothing gets the juices flowing like the national championship.”
Tech tees off at 6:32 a.m. local time (9:32 a.m. Eastern) Sunday morning on the 10th hole, paired with Pepperdine (566, +6) and top-seed Vanderbilt (568, +8), who sit fourth and fifth on the leaderboard. The Tar Heels won the tiebreaker over the Yellow Jackets for the right to tee off the No. 1 tee Sunday based on cumulative…
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