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38
Men’s Golf
USC Aiken Claims PBC Men’s Golf Championship!
ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA – After entering the final round trailing
by four strokes, the USC Aiken Pacers put on a scoring clinic on
Sunday, turning in a team round of two-under-par 286 to claim
the 2017 PBC Men’s Golf Championship. The Pacers overtook
second-place Lander, finishing the event nine strokes up on the
par-72, 6,939-yard Slammer & Squire Course at the World Golf
Village in St. Augustine. Young Harris finished third with Georgia
College in fourth and Columbus State in fifth.
North Georgia’s Matt Elliott became the first Nighthawk to ever
win the PBC Individual Championship as he fired a final-round
68 to win the event by two strokes over USCA’s Johnson Holliday.
Young Harris’ Valter Andersson and Columbus State’s Gideon van
der Vyver were tied for third with USCA’s Michale Hocker in fifth.
Those players were placed on the All-Tournament team.
As a team, USCA collected 11 birdies and an eagle en route
to the title. In addition to Holliday’s even-par final round, Axel
Ostensson was two-over 74 with Dan Sheehan at one-over 73.
But the round of the day was turned in by Hocker. After collecting
four birdies on the front nine to go out in 32, Hocker eagled the
par-five 11th and came back in 35 for a five-under 67, the low
round of the tournament. Hocker moved up 16 places on Sunday
alone for his fifth-place finish.
The championship is the third in the last five years for USC Aik-
en. It was their 11th overall men’s golf title, most in PBC history.
Matt Elliott began Sunday in fourth place after rounds of 71
and 73. The junior from Wilkesboro, N.C., birdied the fourth, fifth and
sixth holes and was four-under after nine. He played even par on the back
nine with two more birdies, finishing at four-under 68.
YHC’s Andersson also fired a final-round 68 to jump four spots into the
All-Tournament team, the second Mountain Lion to ever earn a spot. In
all, there were four total rounds in the 60s fired in the tournament, three
of those on Sunday. Additionally, eight of the 11 teams in the field shot
under 300.
Lander’s Pospisil named semifinalist for Jack Nicklaus
Award
GREENWOOD – Lander’s Michal Pospisil has been named a semifinalist
for the 2017 Division II Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year Award
presented by Barbasol. Division II finalists for the award will be named
May 18. Nicklaus Award recipients will be announced June 1 with the
honor presented by Jack Nicklaus at a ceremony during the final round of
the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide at Muirfield Village
Golf Club.
In addition to receiving the Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year
Award, the five recipients will compete in the Barbasol Shootout for an
exemption into the PGA TOUR’s Barbasol Championship, held July 20-23,
at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at Grand National in Opelika, Ala. The
Barbasol Shootout will be held Saturday, June 3 at the storied Scioto
Country Club in Columbus, Ohio - the same club where Jack Nicklaus first
learned the game of golf as a young boy.
Pospisil is the first Bearcat in history to be named the PBC Men’s Golfer
2016-17