Illinois posts the second-lowest team score in a NCAA Championship round at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona to solidly take the clubhouse lead of the tournament.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Staff Writer

May 27, 2023

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

The second round of the 2023 NCAA Men’s Golf Championships proved once again that a mad, angry and irritated Illinois team is also a focused and elite team at the same time.

Bothered by their opening performance on Friday that included six double bogeys and a 5-over-par total leaving them on the outside of the top eight cutline, Illinois responded in impressive fashion Saturday morning with the second-lowest team score since the national championship event was moved to Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2019.

“Today, we came out on point, a little more with a purpose, a little more focused and a little more of that Illinois edge,” Illinois head coach Mike Small said. “We played solid golf. We chipped and putted our ball well, had a few good saves and drove it solidly. We just played better and played to our strengths today.”

Illinois saw all of its four qualifying scores finish under par leading to a 7-under 273 total.

By the end of play on Saturday night, Illinois went from five back of the team lead to leading second place Florida by three strokes and ahead of Georgia Tech, the overnight leader, and North Carolina in third by eight. The Illini and Gators, which needed a monumental comeback effort on the final day to advance out of its NCAA regional last week, were the only two programs to finish Saturday with an under-par score for the day.

The Illini bounceback effort was led by fifth-year senior Adrien Dumont de Chassart’s second consecutive 68 to put the Belgian native in a tie for second just three back of the leader when he signed his scorecard halfway through the race for the individual medalist honors.

Dumont de Chassart, who will turn professional immediately after this tournament is completed, joked with media Saturday afternoon that he’s found previously he does play better with an aggravated mindset but is the one Illini player who “hasn’t had a chance to get mad yet and to test out that theory” this week. Dumont de Chassart had made just four bogeys in his 36 holes of competition so far and has so far played each set of nine holes at even-par or better all week.

“We had a good talk with coaches after yesterday. Being under par was huge today,” Dumont de Chassart said. “Shooting 7-under on any course as a team isn’t easy but particularly on this course is very difficult.”

Halfway through the stroke play format, Illinois is already 13 strokes clear of the top eight cutline to reach the match play quarterfinal round, which starts on Monday, for the eighth time in program history - which would tie Oklahoma State for the most in NCAA history since the format was created in 2009.

The first of four days of stroke play will determine which programs will move on to the match play format of the championship. Following three rounds of play, the field will be cut in half as the top 15 teams will advance to the final day of competition. After four days of stroke play, the top eight teams will be bracketed and play three rounds of best-of-five, head-to-head match play to determine a national champion.

The battle for the final transfer spot into the match play quarterfinals is still highly contested after 36 holes as Atlantic Coast Conference rivals Florida State and Virginia both sit tied for seventh at 11 over par. However, 18 programs currently find themselves either inside the top eight or within eight shots of that cutline with 36 holes of stroke play still remaining.

Due to Illinois being ranked as the No. 3 team in the nation, the Illini earned the right to draw the late-early tee times so Small’s squad were on the better end of the draw for Saturday’s play as half of the 30-team field had just begun its second round of action when all five Illinois players were done following a par putt by Demont de Chassart on the 18th green.

“Obviously it’s a lot cooler and I think guys were a lot more excited about playing today in the morning,” Dumont de Chassart said. “Avoiding big mistakes was huge for our team today.”

Compared to Friday’s action that Small described as “out of sorts”, Illinois didn’t record a single double bogey on any of its four qualifying scorecards and senior Matthis Besard arguably best represented the Illini’s turnaround from the first day to the second.

Besard, a highly-coveted transfer from Southern Illinois after he was named Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year, began his tournament with consecutive double bogeys on No. 10 and 11. When he made the turn for the back nine Saturday afternoon, Besard birdied both of those holes completing a six-shot swing from his opening round. The 23-year-old Belgian, who was a first-team All-Big Ten Conference selection this season, flew up 49 spots on the individual leaderboard by finishing with four birdies on the back nine for a 2-under-par 68 after being the non-qualifying score for the Illini team on Friday.

“The first thing I would say is Matthis has a lot of pride in his game and showed that today,” Small said. “A lot of our guys showed that today. A lot of our guys made some make good saves out there to preserve par and preserve their scores. The way I would compare it is you don’t really have defense in this game but if you do, a short game is your defense. Ball-striking is your offense.”

Being able to more than survive the afternoon draw of the opening round allowed for Illinois not much time to sleep on their average performance for calmer, cooler and more gettable course conditions on Saturday morning.

“In any four-round tournament, what you always hope for is late-early with the draw,” Small said. “If you played bad in the first round, you don’t have time to sit around and think about it. If you played well in the afternoon first round, you get right back out there and capitalize on the momentum. We’ve earned that right to do late-early by being ranked in the top three of the nation. Now we’re going to figure out how to maintain this. It’s not easy to deal with the heat of yesterday, get to bed and then get up at dark thirty o’clock for your tee time the next day.”

However, despite those tamer conditions, Illinois managed to post just the only under-par team score of the 15 programs that teed off during the tamer second round morning conditions. The Illini were eight shots better than the 1-over-park marks of Arizona State and Virginia, 11 shots better than No. 2 ranked North Carolina and 15 strokes lower than No. 1 Vanderbilt.

Jackson Buchanan, who Dumont de Chassart admitted to media “didn’t go to bed until about 11 p.m.” after bogeying three of his final six holes Friday, carded four birdies on his way to a 2-under 68 that sees him inside the top 10 of the individual medalist leaderboard. Buchanan, who is playing in his first NCAA Championships, is at 1-under-par 139 and currently one of just a dozen players under par for the tournament in the 156-player field.

Outside of Illinois and Florida, the big movers on Saturday were Virginia and Arizona State. The Cavaliers, making their first NCAA Championship appearance since 2017, rose 10 spots on the team leaderboard following a 1-over-par 281 to counter the 10-over-par opening round they carded in the Friday afternoon wave.

“I felt like yesterday, we played fairly well in the afternoon which put us in a good position here today,” Virginia head coach Bowen Sargent said. “For both days we kind of did what we knew we needed to do. We hung in there yesterday and then today I felt like you could have broken par and we were certainly right there to do that.”

Arizona State posted a 1-over-par 281 in the Saturday morning wave to climb 12 spots from tied for 21st after the opening round to just one shot back of the final transfer spot into the match play round. The Sun Devils, which returned just one player from the 2022 national runner-up squad (Preston Summerhays), saw a 10-shot difference in its score from Friday to Saturday.

Georgia Tech senior Ross Steelman will go to sleep with the individual medalist lead for the second consecutive night as he backed up his 64 on Friday in the early morning conditions by grinding out a 1-under 69 in the much tougher Saturday afternoon draw. The Columbia, Mo. native is three shots ahead of Dumont de Chassart and Texas A&M junior Daniel Rodrigues. Steelman’s 7-under-par total is on pace to match the lowest winning score at a NCAA Championship at Grayhawk set in 2021 by Clemson’s Turk Pettit.

Small confirmed to media Saturday that Illinois will get the early side of the draw for being one of the top three spots in the team standings after two days of competition. Therefore, Small will again have an early wake-up call for his squad and see his entire team start its third round of play on Sunday on the front nine of Grayhawk before 7 a.m. CST.

The Golf Channel will televise the final round of stroke play on Monday starting at 4 p.m. CST. Golf Channel will broadcast the quarterfinal and semifinal team matches on Tuesday at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. respectively and then will broadcast the national championship team match on Wednesday evening starting at 4 p.m.

NCAA Championships

Team Scores

Illinois -2

Florida +1

North Carolina +6

Georgia Tech +6

Pepperdine +8

Vanderbilt +10

Florida State +11

Virginia +11

Alabama +12

Arizona State +12

Auburn +14

Texas A&M +14

Georgia +16

Stanford +16

BYU +16*

Texas Tech +17

Colorado +18

San Francisco +19

Oklahoma +20

Ohio State +22

Arkansas +22

Oregon +23

Mississippi State +26

Texas +27

New Mexico +28

Duke +29

Colorado State +35

Chattanooga +36

East Tennessee State +40

Baylor +40

NOTE: BYU is restricted from playing on Sunday so they were permitted to play and record its third round score on Thursday afternoon/evening with a 23-over-par 303 total. Therefore, the Cougars three-day total is 39-over-par 879.

Illini Individual Scores

T2 Adrien Dumont de Chassart: 68-68--136 (-4)

T8 Jackson Buchanan: 71-68--139 (-1)

T19 Tommy Kuhl: 72-69--141 (+1)

T42 Matthis Besard: 76-68--144 (+4)

T108 Piercen Hunt: 74-75--149 (+9)