University of Georgia Athletics
Bulldogs Carrying Confidence Into NCAAs
May 25, 2023 | Men's Golf, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
Chris Haack kept believing that the eruption was coming. All the signs were there for the Georgia men's golf coach, who has seen a thing or two in his 27 seasons. The only question was: would the season end for the Bulldogs before they managed to put it all together in a tournament.
"I have been seeing that building all year," Haack said last week, after Georgia and senior Ben van Wyk posted wire-to-wire victories at the NCAA Bath Regional. "I've been telling people all spring that this team was ready to explode, because I see it out here every day. We just hadn't seen it translate into a tournament. ...
"I've been seeing these guys looking like they were ready to explode. I literally told them that. And it happened at the right time."
Playing at Eagle Eye Golf Club, in Bath, Mich., in cool and breezy conditions, the Bulldogs, ranked No. 34 by Golfstat coming in, played like the team Haack, associate head coach Jim Douglas and the players all knew they could be.
"All season, I feel like we kind of underperformed a little bit," said junior Caleb Manuel, who finished the 54-hole event at 7 under and in a tie for second place.
"Our team, it was just a matter of time for us to play well together," van Wyk said.
Georgia played a couple of practice rounds at courses around Detroit, Haack said, and he liked what he saw.
"You could just see those guys playing well up there, making a lot of birdies," he said. "They started seeing a lot of birdies go in during our practice days, and I think they just kept the momentum going."
Said van Wyk: "We've had not our best year, obviously. The team hadn't fired collectively, as a group, but leading up to the tournament, everyone was playing well. We made an emphasis to kind of attack the tournament and have a good one, instead of just letting it happen."
Attack they did.
How good were the Bulldogs at Eagle Eye? Georgia's three-day score of 29-under par was eight strokes clear of No. 3-ranked Illinois (-21), which finished second.
All five Bulldogs — Manuel, van Wyk, Maxwell Ford, Buck Brumlow and Connor Creasy — finished tied for 20th or better, with van Wyk taking medalist honors with a 10-under finish, three strokes clear of Manuel and two others at 7-under.
To be able to finally put the performances together and play so well as a team, Manuel said, "feels really good."
For van Wyk, the first win of his collegiate career was a long time coming, and oh so sweet.
"It was a really cool week, and it was nice to finally get it done," said the senior from George, South Africa.
Heading into the regional, van Wyk only had one top-10 finish and five in the top 20 this season. Manuel came in with a top 10 and three top 20s.
At Eagle Eye, Manuel led the field with 19 birdies. Ford and van Wyk had 15 birdies each, tied for second-most in the field, and Cressy wasn't far behind with 12.
"A week or two before the tournament, I was working on a few physical things with my swing, especially my irons," van Wyk said. "Iron play was the key for me that week."
"I think all year long I've been struggling to make birdies, which is why I've been around even-par all year," Manuel said. "To be able to make three bogeys in a round and still be able to shoot 4-under, that's fun golf."
Along with making a lot of birdies, Haack said, the guys "avoided big numbers, which is what you have to do."
The course the Bulldogs thrived upon at the regional bears little resemblance to the one they'll try to solve at the NCAA Championships, staring Friday.
Grayhawk Golf Club, in Scottsdale, Ariz., is a desert course (as you might expect). Other than having green grass and trouble lurking if your shots are wayward, Grayhawk has little in common with Eagle Eye or the UGA Golf Course. But what worked in Michigan can work just fine in the desert: hit fairways, hit greens, scramble well when you have to, and make some putts.
Much easier said than done for the average duffer, but the Bulldogs, and all collegiate golfers still teeing it up in May, aren't going to be thrown off by the radical change in conditions.
"It's desert golf. You've got cactuses left and right, desert left and right, and you've got to hit it pretty straight," Haack said. "It's the dead opposite of what we just saw, which was a lot of lush grass and green everywhere.
"It's going to require your complete game. If you can keep it out of the desert, you're doing good."
Georgia won't tee it up in the desert believing they can do it; the Bulldogs will tee it up knowing they can.
"We just want to keep that confidence, knowing that anything is possible," Haack said. "We showed we can do it, and now we've just got to go out there and not get too many expectations in our head. Just go out there and play solid. If things work, great. If they don't, just keep grinding away."
Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
