Hoos Savor Historic Triumph

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Year after year, Bowen Sargent would remind his team on the eve of the ACC men’s golf tournament that the University of Virginia had never captured the championship. After a while, the Cavaliers’ head coach began second-guessing himself.

“I started wondering, ‘Am I putting too much pressure on them? Is it a curse?’ ” said Sargent, who’s in his 21st year at UVA. “But I’m real open and honest with the guys.”

Heading into this year’s tournament, held at The Club at Olde Stone in Bowling Green, Ky., Sargent told his golfers that Virginia might win 10 ACC titles in the next 30 years. Only one of those teams, however, would have the distinction of winning the first championship, and that group’s photo would hang in a place of honor in the Dean Family Performance Center at Birdwood Golf Course in Charlottesville.

“I think they used that a little bit as a rallying cry,” he said, “because when we were done yesterday they were like, ‘Sarge, that picture’s going up in the building,’ and I said, ‘You’re damn right it is.’ ”

UVA made history Monday, defeating North Carolina 3-2 to secure its first title in a tournament first held in 1954.

“We try not to add any more pressure than there is, but we were obviously thinking that we could make history by winning this event,” junior Bryan Lee said. “I think our main goal was to just take it one step at a time. We just took everything one shot at a time, one round, one match. We were just trying to live in the present versus thinking, this means so much. And obviously it means a lot to everybody, but we were just excited to kind of get out there and have the opportunity to win, and luckily it went our way.”

The win over UNC, which won the ACC title in 2024, capped a remarkable week for Virginia, which entered the tournament as the No. 3 seed.

All 15 of the conference’s teams played 54 holes of stroke play, after which the top eight advanced to the match play. UVA won the stroke play competition for the first time, posting a three-round total of 846 to 854 for second-place UNC, and then blanked Georgia Tech 3-0 in the quarterfinals Sunday.

In the semifinals Sunday afternoon, Virginia trailed Clemson late in their match, and “it did not look good for us on the back nine,” senior Deven Patel recalled Tuesday. “I think three or four of the matches were orange, and not the good orange, either. They were all going towards Clemson, mine included.”

With the Tigers leading 2-1, Andrew Swanson was 3-up on Patel with four holes to play in their match. “We were beat,” Sargent said.

Or so it seemed. Then Patel revived the Wahoos, winning four straight holes to defeat Swanson and tie the team score at 2-2. Lee took it from there, edging Lucas Augustsson in a match that went 21 holes.

In Monday’s final, UVA fell behind 2-1 before staging another memorable rally. Patel won his match 1-up to tie the team score at 2-2, and once again Lee was the last Cavalier on the course. Once again he delivered, recording a 2-up victory over UNC’s Maxwell Ford.

“I trust him with pretty much any match,” Sargent said of Lee.

So do the other Cavaliers. “The work he’s put in and everything he’s done, it showed this week,” Patel said, “and I’m so happy for him and happy for the team too.”

As the last UVA golfer to tee off in each of the final three rounds, Lee knew he might be the one who decided the match.

“At first it’s obviously a pretty daunting task to have for anybody,” Lee said, “but I thought that if my team and my coach can trust me to be in the last spot, I think I should come up to that standard.”

Patel went 3-0 in match play at the ACC tournament. Lee was 2-0 officially, but he was comfortably ahead in his match against Georgia Tech when Virginia clinched the victory.

Lee and Patel roomed together in Bowling Green, and at the team hotel they laid out their strategy ahead of the tournament.

“We told each other we were going to get two points every single match,” Patel said. “We didn’t tell the other guys this, obviously. This was kind of just something that stayed between us. We were like, ‘We’re going to get two points, so they just need to get one point every day and we’re going to win our match.’ So we did our job.”

Inconsistency has marked the Cavaliers’ play this spring, and “that’s something that we had talked about as a team as well [as postseason approached],” Sargent said. “It was like, ‘Hey, guys, it’s time to wake up. We’ve got to start playing like the team that we think we are.’ ”

The Hoos turned in a strong final round to finish second at the Lewis Chitengwa Memorial at Birdwood early this month, and they carried that momentum into ACCs. Next up for Virginia is an NCAA regional. The selection show is Wednesday afternoon, and the Hoos will learn to which of the six regionals they’re headed. The top five teams in each regional advance to the NCAA Championships.

In 2023 and again last season, UVA lost to the eventual national champion after qualifying for match play at the NCAA Championships. To get back to that stage next month, the Hoos know they’ll have to play well, and the ACC title boosts their confidence.

“It’s a big shot in the arm,” Sargent said.

“We all knew we were good,” Patel said. “We all knew we could win, and we all know we can win later in the year, and it was good to finally see everyone’s work and everyone’s drive put to show. And I just think that the confidence that you get from winning an ACC championship is only going to help us going into regionals and nationals. I just can’t say how excited I am for these next few weeks, for myself and for the team.”

Lee agreed. “We can’t take this for granted and not work the way we have, because getting through regionals is not an easy task,” he said. “However, I do feel like we’re all trending in the right direction.”

The response from the program’s alumni to the Cavaliers’ breakthrough, not surprisingly, has been overwhelming, Sargent said.

“It’s so cool,” he said, “and I’ve told each and every one of them, ‘You’re a part of this.’ Everybody that’s worn the orange and blue, I hope they feel a lot of pride and feel like this championship was partly theirs as well.”

To receive Jeff White’s articles by email, click the appropriate box in this link to subscribe.