Men's Golf Hosts Williams Cup At Eagle Point

Eagle Point Golf Club, a spectacular 7,300-yard test for a number of the best collegiate players in the country, is home to the fifth annual Williams Cup presented by STITCH Golf beginning on Sunday, October 19.

The North Carolina Tar Heels are again the host of the three-day, 54-hole tournament that features seven of the top-25 teams in the nation in the NCAA's Scoreboard/Clippd rankings.

The Tar Heels enter the Williams Cup ranked No. 12 in the country after claiming a share of the team title at the Ben Hogan Collegiate Invitational and a runner-up showing at Notre Dame's Fighting Irish Classic.

Utah debuted this week as the nation's top-ranked team after a pair of top-three performances in the Utes' first two starts.

Joining Carolina and Utah in the field are No. 4 Auburn, No. 11 Texas, No. 13 Oklahoma, No. 23 Notre Dame, No. 24 Arizona, No. 26 Florida, No. 28 Louisville, Augusta, Kentucky, NC State, UNCW and Oregon State.

The Williams Cup honors Roy Williams and his wife, Wanda, for their many contributions to college athletics. The Hall of Famer was UNC men's basketball coach for 18 seasons, leading the Tar Heels to three NCAA titles and nearly 500 wins from 2003-21.

This year's Williams Cup includes three of the previous four NCAA team champions in Texas (2022), Florida (2023) and Auburn (2024). The Longhorns came into this season ranked No. 1 in the nation by Golf Channel, while the Tigers are currently the top team in the Bushnell Coaches' poll.

Carolina will enter two five-man lineups this week. The starters include Niall Sheils Donegan, Carson Bertagnole, Andrew Riley, Keaton Vo and Grant Roscich. The second group includes Sihan Sandhu, Misha Golod, Ethan Paschal, Hampton Roberts and Mack Edwards.

Bertagnole, a freshman from Pinehurst, shot 6-under-par 204 at Notre Dame to win his first collegiate title in just his third start. He opened with a 67 and won with a 35-foot birdie on the second playoff hole. He became the first Tar Heel freshman to win a full-field event since Peter Fountain in 2021.

Numerous individual standouts will take on the challenging course at Eagle Point, including six players who competed in the 2025 Walker Cup at Cypress Point, 11 All-Americas from last season, 13 of the top 50 players in the World Amateur Golf Rankings (WAGR) and 12 of the top 50 in the Scoreboard/Clippd individual rankings.

Auburn's Jackson Koivun won National Player-of-the-Year honors in 2024, when he led the Tigers as a freshman to the national championship. He repeated as a first-team All-America last season, helped lead Team USA to victory in the Walker Cup and is ranked No. 1 in WAGR.

Texas' Daniel Bennett and Tommy Morrisson, Auburn's Josiah Gilbert, Notre Dame's Jacob Modleski and Oklahoma's Jase Summy all earned second-team All-America honors last year. Texas' Christiaan Mass and Florida's Luke Poulter were third team.

Maas is coming off an individual win at the World Amateur Team Championship two weeks ago in Singapore, where he and Bennett, his Longhorn teammate, also helped South Africa to the team title.

Poulter teamed with Carolina's Sheils Donegan on Team Great Britain and Ireland in the Walker Cup, while Modleski, Morrison and Summy teamed with Koivun on the victorious U.S. Team.

Utah's Gabriel Palacios is No. 1 in the country in this week's Scoreboard/Clippd rankings, the first of the season. Four other players in the field are ranked in the top 15, including the Utes' Davis Johnson (5^th), Summy (11th), Gilbert (14th) and Notre Dame's Calen Sanderson (15^th). Bertagnole is Carolina's highest-ranked individual at No. 49.

The chase for the individual title in the Williams Cup should be fun to watch as eight of WAGR's top 25 are competing: No. 1 Koivun, No. 4 Mass, No. 5 Summy, No. 7 Filip Jacubik of Arizona, No. 8 Morrison, No. 14 Jack Turner of Florida, No. 16 Modleski (the 2025 ACC medalist) and No. 24 Bennett.

Carolina has won the team title in each of the first four Williams Cups. The Tar Heels shot 17-under 847 for a nine-stroke win over Georgia in 2021, 3-over 867 and a 12-shot win over UNCW in 2022, 11-under 853 and an 18-stroke win over Auburn in 2023, and 16-under 848 last season.

Last October, the Tar Heels trailed Arizona State by two after 36 holes, but Hampton Roberts (68), Ethan Paschal (69), David Ford (70) and Maxwell Ford (70) combined to shoot 10 under par in the final round to edge the Sun Devils by a stroke.

David Ford was medalist for the second straight Williams Cup. He shot 68-68-70 for 10-under 206 and a one-stroke margin over ASU's Connor Williams. In four starts in the Williams Cup, Ford won twice, finished second twice and shot a combined 25 under par.

Georgia's Trent Phillips (15-under 201) was the medalist in the inaugural event; Indiana's Drew Salyers (4-under 212) was the champion in 2022; in 2023, Ford (4-under 212) made an 8-footer for birdie to defeat North Florida's Nick Gabrelcik on the first extra hole.

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Players Mentioned

Carson Bertagnole

Mack Edwards

David Ford

Maxwell Ford

Misha Golod

Ethan Paschal

Andrew Riley

Hampton Roberts

Grant Roscich

Sihan Sandhu

Niall Sheils Donegan

Keaton Vo

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