June 1, 2015
Auburn notched the fourth-best NCAA Championship finish in school history
BRADENTON, Fla. -- The No. 8 Auburn men's golf team notched the fourth best NCAA Championship finish in school history by placing 12th at The Concession Club on Monday.
Auburn shot an 8-over 296 in the stroke play final round for an overall score of 31-over 1183. The Tigers began the day at 7 am Eastern by playing 0-3 holes in order to finish 12th after three rounds as the 30-team field was cut in half.
"It was another great year," said Auburn head coach Nick Clinard. "We've had five in a row and had the fourth best finish in school history today. Today, we started out great (on the back nine), made the turn great, and we were rolling. The same thing happened like yesterday. We kind of stalled out on the front nine, made some poor decisions and had some bad golf swings.
"Overall, it was a great year with three wins and four individual medalists, and all five guys who played here made the All-Southeast Region team so hats off to them."
Junior All-SEC Michael Johnson tied for 25th with a 4-under final round 68 to go with opening rounds of 78-72-73 to finish at 3-over 291. First-team All-SEC and SEC Freshman of the Year Ben Schlottman, who finished with the fourth lowest single-season stroke average in Auburn history at 70.96, tied for 61st with senior Dan Stringfellow.
Schlottman had rounds of 74-72-72-83--301 while Stringfellow had a 75-72-75-79--301. Sophomore first-team All-SEC Matt Gilchrest tied for 71st with a 76-80-76-74--306 and sophomore Ryan Benton tied for 74th at 76-74-82-75--307.
With the top eight teams advancing to match play, No. 1 Illinois (1155) finished stroke play in the lead followed by No. 4 Vanderbilt (1157), No. 9 Georgia (1158), No. 2 Texas (1158), No. 13 Southern California (1161), No. 13 South Florida (1168), No. 7 LSU (1169) and No. 16 UCLA (1172) in eighth.
No. 9 Georgia Tech (1175) just missed the cut in ninth followed by TCU (1179), No. 1 Florida State (1181), No. 8 Auburn (1183), No. 6 South Carolina (1187), No. 21 SMU (1192) and San Diego State (1193) to round out the 15 that made the cut for the final stroke play round.
Resuming the suspended third round early Monday, Auburn closed out its remaining three holes even par as the Tigers advance to the final round of stroke play in a three-way tie for 12th.
SMU's Bryson Dechambeau won the NCAA Championship individual title with an 8-under 280, one shot ahead of Washington's Cheng-Tsung Pan.
The match play quarterfinals and semifinals both take place on Tuesday at 6 am and 12:30 pm Central, respectively. The NCAA Championship match is on Wednesday, June 3 at 1:10 pm Central.
Golf Channel will televise the NCAA Championship live on Tuesday from 9:30-11:30 am and 2:30-6 pm and Wednesday from 2-6 pm.
The Tigers are one of only eight teams to appear in four consecutive NCAA Championships. It is Auburn's 20th overall appearance.
Auburn destroying the school's team single-season stroke average record by averaging 283.23 strokes per round. The previous record is 285.30 set in 2011-12. In fact, Clinard-coached Auburn teams have the four lowest averages in Tiger history.
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