National Championship

After a fantastic meal at Outback steak house we discussed what we had achieved so far, i was still on cloud 9 after my finish. The whole team didn't really seem nervous at dinner just really relaxed and content. We knew what we had to do and all of us were so excited to get out there the next day. We knew Chico had some great players and we really had to bring our A games to beat them. We woke up relaxed and ready the next day despite having the same breakfast for 6 days we left for the course raring to go. The final was filmed extensively by the NCAA media staff and as we were filmed throughout warm up we felt like we were at a tour event.

As i walked to the first tee i felt an extreme sense of focus and calm and proceeded to smash my first tee shot miles down the first hole. I played the first few holes fantastically and i was 2 under through 6. I hit a great shot into 8 and converted for another birdie whilst my opponent was struggling at 3 over par. I birdied the 9th the par 5 to turn in 4 under par with a 7 shot lead. As i reached the 12th i looked at the scoring for the whole match and to my surprise we were up narrowly in all the games. I turned my focus off to my mistake and 3 putted the 13th. Despite playing extremely well all day i finished with a 3 putt for 70. Off to the media booth i went for an interview and a nervous wait, to see how the rest of the team were doing and to see if we could get the job done.

After my interview which you can see here. I watched my team mate Ben Vertz, he came up with a one shot lead and hit it onto the green 40 feet away. His first putt finished 9 feet short and his partner missed his mid range birdie attempt. So Ben had a 9 footer for us too take a two nil lead and be closer to that elusive National Championship. He took his time visualizing the putt see it drop in and he stepped up and rattled it straight in the middle what a way to go out as Senior.

As the nervous wait continued it was down to Columbian superstar Ricardo Celia to seal the deal he tapped in and gave us a clean sweep to know that we had won the national championship was an amazing feeling. We watched as Oscar and Ben sealed the victories for an astonishing victory of 5 nil against a great side from Chico. There were a few celebrations on the green afterwards and then we received our trophy.

The amazing thing after all the ceremonies was the fact that all of us felt that winning was really an anti climax, we all felt that the journey that got us there was were we found true happiness. Being able to put that much work in and have it pay off was really a fantastic feeling! But the fun came from the strive and not the end result.

The party began at the closing ceremony were all the national champions were congratulated!

The drinks were flowing afterwards despite having to leave at 530 am the next morning and we all managed to make our flight.

A wonderful week was made even more special by all the support we got from the university and the replay of te final can be seen on NCAA.com under mens golf! There also was a show on CBS which can be found online also

GO SHARKS!