The South Carolina club golf team won the NCCGA national championship on Sunday with a two-day total score of 27 over par.
The Gamecocks sent eight golfers to The Resort at Glade Springs in Daniels, West Virginia to compete in the National Collegiate Club Golf Association national championship over the weekend. The Resort at Glade Springs is the sister complex to the Greenbrier Resort, which hosts the PGA tour event Greenbrier Classic every year.
The field was made up of 30 teams from around the country, including teams from as far away as California, Texas and Florida, but they were no match for the Gamecocks. The USC team finished with a score of 747, which was 17 strokes better than the second place finisher, the University of Alabama.
Each team had all eight golfers play 18 holes on Saturday and Sunday, with the five highest scores of the day counting towards the team’s total. The Gamecocks were led by Ford Blanchard and Brian Weaver who finished with two-day totals of 145 and 146, the second and third best individual scores of the entire tournament. Blanchard was the only Gamecock to break par in either round when he posted a one-under-par 71 on Sunday. The team also received contributions from Wesley Long, Robert Ferira, Billy Freeman and Evan Rodwell.
The Gamecocks came into the tournament ranked 12th by the NCCGA but saved their best golf for their last two rounds of the year. The team battled through tough conditions and fog delays to cruise to a comfortable victory over the nation’s best club golf teams.