Men's Golf Tees Off Friday In NCAA Championship

Friday, May 29

Carlsbad, Calif. (North Course at the Omni LaCosta Resort & Spa)

All Day

North Carolina

NCAA Championship Day One

May 28, 2026 | Men's Golf

By: Steve Kirschner

Ninth-ranked and No. 9 seed North Carolina returns to the NCAA Championship for the eighth time in the last nine post-seasons when the Tar Heels begin play Friday on the North Course at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.

UNC tees off in round one on Friday at 3:45 p.m. Eastern.

Carolina qualified with a fourth-place performance in the Bryan, Texas Regional. This is the 50^th time UNC is competing in the NCAA Championship round. Last year, the Tar Heels missed out on one of the 30 spots in the field, but that followed a four-year run when they finished fifth, fifth, third and fifth, becoming one of a handful of programs to qualify for match play in four consecutive NCAA Championships.

Andrew DiBitetto, the Johnny and Tricia Thompson Men's Golf Head Coach, has led the Tar Heels to 27 tournament wins. The Tar Heels have won three times this season, finished in top three in four other tournaments and had three different players capture medalist honors.

Carolina won the Ben Hogan Collegiate Invitational in the fall and the Augusta Haskins Award Invitational and Tar Heel Intercollegiate in the spring.

Freshman Carson Bertagnole won the Fighting Irish Classic at Notre Dame and sophomore Sihan Sandhu won at Augusta, both in playoffs, and junior Niall Sheils Donegan took home top individual honors at the Tar Heel at UNC Finley Golf Club.

Sheils Donegan leads Carolina in scoring average at 69.55, the second-lowest in UNC history behind only National Player of the Year David Ford's record-shattering 68.78 a season ago.

Bertagnole is averaging 70.09, the fifth-best in a season by any Tar Heel and second-lowest by a freshman.

Joining Sheils Donegan, Bertagnole and Sandhu in the lineup are sophomore Grant Roscich, graduate Andrew Riley, the 2022 NCAA Division II national champion, and senior Keaton Vo (the alternate in round one).

Roscich tied Carolina's all-time 18-hole scoring record with a 61 in the second round of the Tar Heel Intercollegiate.

Riley and Vo have previous experience in NCAA Championships – Riley played for North Florida in 2024 at La Costa, while Vo competed for Texas in 2023 at Grayhawk in Scottsdale, Ariz., and in 2024 at La Costa.

The NCAA Championship format includes three rounds of stroke play for each of the 30 teams. Fifteen teams advance to Monday's fourth round, after which eight qualify for match play. The quarterfinal and semifinal matches are Tuesday with the national championship match set for Wednesday, June 3.

The Tar Heels are paired with LSU and Ole Miss in the first two rounds.

Follow live scoring at Scoreboard.clippd.com. Live streaming is available at BabyGrandeGolf.com and Golf Channel will broadcast the final round of stroke play and match play.