Oklahoma’s Patrick Welch carded the lowest round of the championship, 7-under 63, on Sunday to help the Sooners maintain the top spot on the leaderboard. Vanderbilt’s Gordon Sargent holds a one-stroke lead at -4, heading into Monday’s individual championship round over Chris Gotterup (-3) of Oklahoma and Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra (-2) of Oklahoma State.
“Playing in the morning yesterday (Saturday) I felt helped,” said Welch. “I was more familiar what would happen today with the conditions. I hit it well and made a lot of putts. I wanted to avoid making mistakes and play solid golf. I wasn’t thinking about a score.”
Welch’s 63 equaled the low mark achieved at the 2021 NCAA Championships. Arizona State’s Ryggs Johnston also shot 63 during last year’s second round at Grayhawk Golf Club.
Oklahoma State and Vanderbilt switched spots on the leaderboard. Eugenio Chacarra’s 5-under 65 helped the Cowboys finish 3-under on the day, +3 overall to hold a two-shot lead over the Commodores who finished the day 1-over, +5.
“We got three rounds in the books. I like where we are sitting,” said Oklahoma State Head Coach Alan Bratton. “We are in great position heading into the final round. We closed the gap a little bit. Moved up from third to second. I love the way we play this golf course. We proved it last year that Grayhawk is a good golf course for us.”
The par 3 13th yielded its second hole-in-one in as many days. Kansas senior Harry Hillier aced the 230-yard hole with a six-iron. It was his second hole-in-one with the Jayhawks.
The final round of stroke play on Monday will tee off at 10 a.m. MST and will include nine additional players who are not on the top 15 teams that qualified for the final day of stroke play competition. GOLF Channel will begin its coverage of championship at 5 p.m. ET (2 p.m. local/MST).
In the clubhouse on Sunday, VCU’s Adrian Vagberg was announced as the recipient of the Elite 90 Award for this year’s golf championship. The award is presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA’s 90 championships.
