- Gordon Sargent (East Lake Cup photo)
Vanderbilt's
Gordon Sargent and Texas A&M's Blanca Fernández García-Poggio won the individual stroke play titles at the East Lake Cup which got underway on Bobby Jones' home course in Atlanta on Monday.
Sargent claimed the men's title with a 4-under 68 while Fernández García-Poggio's 2-under 70 was good for a two-stroke win over seven others who finished at even par.
Behind a 3-under 69 by freshman Luke Potter, Arizona State earned the top-seed in the match play competition which gets underway on Tuesday. In addition to Potter, Jose Luis Ballester (70), Preston Summerhays (71) and Michael Mjaaseth (71) contributed to the Sun Devil's team score of 7-under 281, which was six strokes clear of second place Texas at 1-under.
The Sun Devils will draw fourth-seed Pepperdine (+4) in one of Tuesday's semifinal match while the Longhorns will take on No. 3 seed Vanderbilt (E).
The drama in deciding the men's individual winner occurred not on the course, but in the scorer's tent. Initially, it seemed as though Sargent had tied for the individual title with Potter and Derek Hitchner of Pepperdine at 3-under and it wasn't until the players were going over their cards that it was discovered the walking scorer had entered a par for Sargent on the fifth hole, when in fact, he made a birdie.
The discrepancy wasn't detected by GOLF Channel until Sargent and his playing partners Summerhays of Arizona State, William Mouw of Pepperdine, Summerhays and Travis Vick of Texas emerged from the scorer's tent.
“I’m proud of Gordon and how he competed all day,” Vanderbilt head coach Scott Limbaugh said. “He continues to show why he’s one of the very best players in college golf. I also thought Cole did a good job responding after getting off to a tough start. It’s good for our guys to get to play in a setting like this against great teams. We did a lot of good things, but we simply weren’t as sharp as we’d like to be throughout the lineup.
“We need to be better tomorrow and need to play with a little more sense of urgency. Great competitors and great teams know how to raise their focus to the highest levels. We need to do a better job of that tomorrow and be ready to go from the start and play with passion. Match play is a lot of fun, and we need to have some fun playing to our Vandy golf standards.”
Bianca Fernández García-Poggio (East Lake Cup photo) Fernández García-Poggio was seemingly on cruise control after she chipped in for an eagle on the par-5 15th hole to go to 5-under on the day. It proved to be enough of a cushion to withstand a double bogey on the par-4 16th and a bogey on the 17th to earn the senior from Madrid, Spain a two-stroke win over seven other golfers who finished at even par, a pack which included Aggie teammates Zoe Slaughter and Adela Cernousek.
The win marked the second individual title of her collegiate career.
"Blanca picked up where she left off," Texas A&M head coach Gerrod Chadwell said. "She had a great week at Arkansas and carried that over here. She has been really strong at practice the past couple of weeks and kind of blew everybody away in qualifying. She was in total control on a very competitive golf course, so I am very proud of her."
Texas A&M, ranked third in the most current Golfweek/Sagarin rankings, finished at 1-under to earn the top-seed of the match play portion of the tournament and will meet fourth-seed UCLA (+18) in a semifinal match on Tuesday.
Oregon grabbed the No. 2 seed with a 1-over score of 289 and will meet third-seed Auburn (+6) for the right to advance to Wednesday's title match.
GOLF Channel will provide live coverage of Tuesday's semifinals along with Wednesday's championship match beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET from historic East Lake.
Vanderbilt and Texas A&M Athletic Communications contributed to this report.View results for East Lake Cup
ABOUT THE
East Lake Cup
Started in 2015 and hosted by the historic
East
Lake Golf Club Atlanta, this collegiate, three-day
match
play competition features the top-performing
teams
from the previous year's NCAA Men’s
Golf Championships. There is an individual award for
the low 18-hole scorer
in the seeding round.
View Complete Tournament Information