Duke hot, UNC hopeful heading into ACC Golf Championship

The ACC Golf Championship begins Friday at Old North State Club in New London, and the winner is anybody’s guess.

In the past decade, Georgia Tech would have been a good pretournament guess and usually the right guess. But things may be different this year.

“It should definitely be a shootout,” North Carolina coach Andrew Sapp said this week.

Six ACC teams are among the top 25 in the national rankings and Georgia Tech isn’t one of them. The Yellow Jackets were 48th in the recent Golfstat poll.

Granted, the ACC tournament has seemed like the Georgia Tech Invitational and the ACC trophy the Yellow Jackets’ yearly plaything. The Jackets, coached by Bruce Heppler, have won the past two ACC titles and four of the past five, and have either won or shared the team title in eight of the last 10 years.

The only clean breaks in the Georgia Tech chain of command: Florida State in 2008 and Duke in 2013.

A year ago, Florida State was ranked No. 1 nationally and the Yellow Jackets were No. 11 entering the ACC Championship. Georgia Tech edged Clemson in a two-hole playoff for the title as Anders Albertson shared medalist honors with Robin Sciot-Siegrist of Louisville and Trevor Cone of Virginia Tech.

“No doubt Georgia Tech has had a lot of success there the last decade,” Sapp said of Old North State Club. “Georgia Tech also has been the best team in the tournament many of those years, and the best team usually wins.”

Florida State, at No. 7, is the highest ranked ACC team, followed by Wake Forest (11), Clemson (12), Duke (20), Virginia (24) and UNC (25). N.C. State, coming off a victory in its Wolfpack Spring Intercollegiate at Lonnie Poole Golf Course, is ranked 34th and Louisville 55th.

“There should be nine ACC teams going to the NCAAs this year, regardless of what happens in the ACCs,” N.C. State coach Richard Sykes said, stressing the strength of the conference.

Sykes started ticking off the teams and their chances of winning the ACC title, noting, “Wake Forest has probably one of the best teams they’ve had in while.” Sykes then added, “And Georgia Tech will probably win because that’s their course. They do have a young team this year and haven’t played as well as they normally do, but you know how golf is. Anything can happen.”

Duke might be the hottest team. The Blue Devils have won three of their past four tournaments, taking a 34-shot victory in their last event, the Princeton Invitational in Princeton, N.J. Duke finished 25 under par and was 35 shots ahead of third-place Georgia Tech.

Wake Forest has four tournament victories this year, the most for the Demon Deacons since 2002-03. Three titles came in the fall season, but the Deacons won the Irish Creek Collegiate in Kannapolis in their last tournament.

The Tar Heels were fifth in the 2015 ACC tournament but had the best finishing round: 9-under 279. William Register had a 68 and Henry Do a 69 in their last rounds at Old North State Club, and Sapp believes the Tar Heels could contend for their first ACC championship since 2006, when they shared the title with the Yellow Jackets.

“We haven’t been healthy this spring other than in our first tournament,” Sapp said. “Mono, the flu … someone has always felt bad. My main goal this week was to get everybody healthy and to the first tee without someone throwing up.

“We have great balance. We have five players each of whom can step up and lead the team. We need four of the five to be hot as the same time this week.”

It starts with three rounds and 54 holes at Old North State Club, one of the golf properties owned by McConnell Golf of Raleigh.

Sapp noted the UNC basketball team peaked late in the season, reaching the NCAA championship game, saying, “We want to be just like them, start clicking in the postseason and have a long run.”

Or be like Georgia Tech most years at Old North State Club.

This story was originally published April 21, 2016 at 3:01 PM with the headline "Duke hot, UNC hopeful heading into ACC Golf Championship."