Men’s Golf Opens Season At Olympia Fields

Carolina begins the 2023-24 men’s golf season on Friday in the Olympia Fields/Fighting Illini Invitational, a three-day, 54-hole event at the North Course at the Olympia Fields Country Club.
 
The field, already one of the strongest in the country, includes No. 1 ranked Carolina, No. 2 Arizona State, No. 4 Georgia Tech, No. 5 Florida State, No. 7 Stanford, defending NCAA champion and No. 8 Florida, No. 9 Illinois, No. 11 Texas, No. 13 Alabama, No. 15 Pepperdine, No. 16 Oklahoma State, No. 19 Arizona, Baylor, Michigan State and Purdue (Golf Coaches Association rankings).
 
The Tar Heels are playing at Olympia Fields for the third consecutive season and fourth time in the last five seasons. Carolina won the title in 2021, the same year in which Austin Greaser holed out from the fairway on the final hole to win medalist honors, and finished 11^th last season.
 
Carolina’s lineup for the season-opening tournament includes junior David Ford, the 2023 ACC Player of the Year and first-team All-America from Peachtree Corners, Ga.; Maxwell Ford, who transferred to UNC after two seasons at Georgia, where he finished 18^th at the 2023 NCAA Championship; Greaser, a graduate student from Vandalia, Ohio, wthree-time All-ACC honoree; fifth-year senior Dylan Menante, who won an NCAA title in Pepperdine’s starting lineup in 2021 and went 2-0 in match play in the 2023 NCAA Championship; and graduate student Kenan Poole, who qualified for his fourth career start for the Tar Heels.
 
Last year, UNC won five tournaments against some of the best teams in the country, amassing wins at the Ben Hogan Invitational at Colonial, the Stephens Cup at Seminole, The Williams Cup at Eagle Point, the Valspar Collegiate at the Floridian and The Calusa Cup in Naples.
 
The Tar Heels tied for third place in the 2023 NCAA Championship, finishing first after 72 holes of stroke play for the second consecutive season (tied with Oklahoma and Vanderbilt in 2022). UNC edged Arizona State, 3-1, in match play in the NCAA quarterfinals and lost to Georgia Tech, 3-2, in the semifinals.
 
David Ford, Greaser and Menante were members of the United States’ Walker Cup team that defeated Great Britain and Ireland September 2-3 at the Old Course in St Andrews.
 
Live scoring from Olympia Fields is available at Golfstat.com.
 

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