Evans Fires Low Round of the Day, Set for Individual Playoff on Monday

CARLSBAD, Calif. — Following a blistering 5-under, 67, in the third round of the NCAA Championship, Ethan Evans is tied for 27th place on the individual leaderboard and will play in a playoff on Monday morning for the final two individual spots in the fourth round of stroke play.

With his 5-under effort, the Mercer Island, Wash., native logged the low round of the day and matched the best single-round score of the entire event through three rounds of play. 

The low-scoring showing moved Evans up 72 spots on the individual leaderboard, the biggest mover of the day, and set up a three-for-two playoff on Monday morning for the final individual spots in the final round of stroke play.

HOW IT HAPPENED: ROUND THREE

• Starting his round on No. 10, Evans immediately got under-par, pouring in a birdie on the long par-5. 
• Two dropped shots, on holes No. 12 and 14, were his only over-par holes of the day and pushed the sophomore back over-par. He quickly bounced back, however, rolling in a birdie on the reachable par-4 15th. 
• Two more pars, on No. 16 and 17, steadied the round and he made the turn at 1-under after tapping in a five-footer for birdie on the par-5 18th.
• After turning to the front-nine, Evans caught fire and went low while playing bogey-free. After connecting on back-to-back birdies on holes No. 1 and 2, he then alternated par and birdie across the next four holes, capped off by a 10-foot birdie on No. 6, closing out a stretch of six birdies across 10 holes.
• Evans then moved to a three-hole closing stretch that started with the third-hardest hole on the course, the 520-yard, par-4, seventh, which he bested with a par. Another par, on the 203-yard, par-3, eighth, maintained Evans’ strong round. 
• The ninth hole, which played fourth-hardest on the course for the third round, challenged Evans to make par to secure both the low round of the day and a spot in the individual playoff. He rolled in a five-footer for par to post his 5-under, 67, scorecard.

QUOTES

• “I played well all day. It was a fun round out there with Coach and it felt like we had a good gameplan. The first two days, we were just barely missing greens and…