Fountain becomes the first UNC freshman to win the ACC title

25 Apr 2021
by Andrew Stilwell of AmateurGolf.com
see also: View results for ACC Golf Championship, The Club at Olde Stone, Peter Fountain Rankings
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- ACC Men's Golf photo

University of North Carolina freshman Peter Fountain made history over the weekend, becoming the first Tar Heel freshman to win Atlantic Coast Conference individual medalist honors, following rounds of 71-63-66 at Atlanta’s Capital City Club.

Fountain’s total score of 200 was one better than second place finisher Benjamin Shipp, an NC State graduate student, who started the final round in first place. The third round concluded on Sunday rather than the originally scheduled Saturday after wet conditions made the Capital City Club’s Crabapple Course unplayable.

Beginning the day in a tie for third place with fellow Tar Heel senior Austin Hitt at -6, Fountain started slow, bogeying two of his first three holes. However, he regained his composure and birdied the 5th and 7th holes to finish the front nine at -7 for the championship. A birdie on the 12th brought Fountain into a tie for the lead with Shipp and Hitt, which quickly turned into a three-stroke advantage following consecutive birdies on the Raleigh, N.C. freshman’s next three holes.

Shipp would bogey 13, but birdie 14, and finished with pars the rest of the way. With a bogey on the final hole, Fountain gave up one final stroke, but still managed to hang on to claim medalist honors. It was his second overall win, and fourth top-2 finish, in seven tournaments this season.

Fountain was not the only Tar Heel atop the ACC Championship leaderboard, as four of the five Carolina golfers in the field finished in the top 5 in the individual standings for the first time in school history. The closest that Carolina had come prior to 2021 was placing four golfers in the top seven of the 1984 ACC Championship, which was won by Tar Heel Davis Love III.

Hitt finished in solo third with a 68-66-68, while Tar Heel freshman Austin Greaser (69-69-68) and sophomore Ryan Burnett (66-67-73) finished in a tie for fifth place with Clemson junior Jacob Bridgeman and Florida State Senior John Pak, who was low amateur at the 2020 U.S. Open Championship.

Hitt and Greaser became the second and third Tar Heels of all time to finish all three rounds of the Conference Championship with rounds in the 60s.

Fountain’s second round 63 tied the ACC Championship’s 18-hole record, while his cumulative score of 200 for 54 holes tied the all-time conference record for fewest total strokes in the conference championship. His individual title marks the first individual conference championship title for a freshman since Georgia Tech’s Cameron Tringale in 2006. It was the first individual medalist honor for any Tar Heel since Richard Treis in 2003.

As a team, North Carolina finished with a team score of 274-265-275 (-26), the lowest 54-hole score in school history. It is their first time finishing in first in stroke play since 2006, and 12th time overall finishing first in stroke play.

The first place Tar Heels faced 4th place Florida State (+5) in the Match Play semi-finals and the Seminoles won 1 up. They will be joined in Monday’s match play final by 2nd place in stroke play Clemson (-11), who defeated 3-seed NC State (-9) in the match play semifinals.

Results: ACC Golf Championship