David Ford, a rising junior at the University of North Carolina, is one of three amateur golfers to automatically earn berths on the 2023 Walker Cup team, which will represent the United States vs. Great Britain & Ireland September 2-3 at the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland.
Gordon Sargent of Vanderbilt, who was the low amateur at the 2023 U.S. Open, and Stanford’s Michael Thorbjornsen join Ford as the automatic qualifiers for the 49th Walker Cup team based on their top-three positions in the current World Amateur Golf Rankings.
Sargent is ranked first; Thorbjornsen is second and Ford is No.3 in the current WAGR. Sargent and Thorbjornsen teamed with Carolina’s Austin Greaser last fall in the World Amateur Team Championships in France. (Greaser and UNC’s Dylan Menante are No. 4 and No. 7, respectively, in the WAGR released yesterday).
Ford will become the sixth Tar Heel to play in the Walker Cup and the first since Tom Scherrer in 1991. Harvie Ward (1953, 1955 and 1959) and Marty West (1973 and 1979) played in multiple Walker Cups, and Frank Fuhrer (1981), Davis Love III (1985) and Scherrer also represented Team USA in the biannual event.
Ford was the 2023 Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year and was named a first-team All-America by the Golf Coaches Association of America and Golfweek.
The Peachtree Corners, Ga., native qualified for a spot on the U.S. Palmer Cup team, which defeated an international squad June 8-10 in Ligonier, Pa.
He leads Carolina in career stroke average (70.22 in 74 rounds over 24 tournaments) and score to par (-74). The next best score to par in UNC history is 5 under par. Ford has the second- and fifth-best scoring averages in a season by a Tar Heel – 69.89 in 2022-23 and 70.54 in 2021-22.
Ford won his first collegiate tournament this past season, shooting 16-under 200 to win the Jackson T. Stephens Cup at Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Fla., which hosted the Walker Cup in 2021. Ford’s win included a 10-under 62 in the second round when he birdied eight consecutive holes on one of the most prestigious courses in the country.
Ford has a win, four seconds, seven top 5s and 14 top 10s in 24 starts as a Tar Heel. He’s led UNC to a pair of top-five finishes in the NCAA Championships. The Tar Heels tied for fifth in 2022 and third in 2023.
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