Yellow Jackets Reclaim ACC Men’s Golf Title

PINEHURST, N.C. (theACC.com) – Georgia Tech put the finishing touch on a solid long weekend of golf Monday at the Country Club of North Carolina, downing Wake Forest 3-2 in the match play final to claim the 2023 Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Golf Championship.
 

Senior anchor Ross Steelman secured the title for the Yellow Jackets by sinking a 25-foot birdie putt on No. 16 for a match-clinching 3&2 win over the Demons Andrew MacLaughlin.
 
The win, which came 24 hours after Georgia Tech led the stroke play competition by 16 shots, gave the Yellow Jackets 11 ACC men’s golf titles over the past 17 seasons and 19 overall – tying Wake Forest for the most in league history. The Yellow Jackets also turned the tables after falling to the Demon Deacons in last year’s title match in Panama City, Florida.

“We didn’t really talk about last year – they probably thought about that more than I did,” Georgia Tech coach Bruce Heppler said. “But I sent them a note last night, to just kind of remember all the chips, putts, balls they’ve hit. The mornings in the weight room, lunches together, dinners together. They’ve become a true team, and they’ve sacrificed a lot. To step up to the first tee and ask the question, ‘Why not us?’ That was really the message.”

 

Christo Lamprecht earned the first point of the day for Georgia Tech with an impressive 6&5 victory over ACC medalist Michael Brennan, and Bartley Forrester edged Mark Power by a 2&1 score.

 

But Wake Forest countered with wins by Boyd Owens and Scotty Kennon to tie things up at 2-2, setting up Steelman’s clutch putt and the exciting finish.

 

ACC teams will now await May 3 and NCAA tournament bids. This year’s ACC Championship boasted six of the top 30 teams in the country in the latest Golfstat rankings, including No. 2 North Carolina, No. 6 Florida State, No. 12 Georgia Tech, No. 16 Virginia, No. 27 Louisville and No. 28 Wake Forest.

 

This year marked the second time – and the first since 1966 – that the ACC Men’s Golf Championship was played on the Dogwood Course at the Country Club of North Carolina. The course opened in 1963 surrounding Watson Lake and Lake Dornoch, the two biggest water features in the club. The 1999 renovation was overseen by Arthur Hills and included a rebuilding of the greens, tees and bunkers. In 2016, the course was…