UNC’s Peter Fountain became the first Tar Heel freshman to ever win the ACC Men’s Golf Championship on Sunday, finishing the event at Capital City Club’s Crabapple Course in Milton, Ga with a score of 10-under-par.

He becomes UNC’s first ACC champion since 2003 and just the 10th freshman from any school to win the event.

The Tar Heels had four of the top five finishers during the stroke play portion of the event, as Austin Hitt, Ryan Burnett and Austin Greaser finished just behind Fountain on the leaderboard.

“Peter was phenomenal again,” head coach Andrew DiBitetto said afterwards. “He’s really good, clutch and has tremendous belief in himself. This was a big-time win and we are very proud of him. Hitt, Burney and Greaser were excellent as well and if a couple things go their way, any of them could’ve won. Having four guys finish in the top 5 in one of the best, if not the best, conference in the country is amazing.”

At the end of stroke play, UNC had set a new ACC Championship record with a score of 26-under-par.

The top four teams were then paired for match play in the semifinal round, with the Tar Heels suffering a shocking loss to Florida State–which had finished stroke play a full 31 shots behind UNC.

This is the first time two rounds of match play has ever decided an ACC champion, something that ultimately doomed the Tar Heels from making even more history.

“Our emotions are all over the board,” DiBitetto said. “We won, but we didn’t, then we lost, all in a matter of a few hours. And we can’t stand losing. The schedule was thrown off due to the weather on Saturday which created a situation where some teams had less than two hours between stroke play and match play and others had about 45 minutes.

“We had 45 minutes and there was a lot going on, especially with (Austin) Hitt, (Ryan) Burnett and (Austin) Greaser in contention for the individual title and Peter (Fountain) winning the ACC individual championship,” he added. “Match play came quickly and we probably weren’t where we needed to be mentally.”

The Tar Heels will now focus their attention on the upcoming NCAA Men’s Golf Tournament, which will have its field announced on May 5.

 

Photo via UNC Athletics

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