Alabama
SEC Championships
Alabama Advances to Match Play at SEC Men’s Golf Championships
4/26/2024 3:07:00 PM | Men's Golf
The Crimson Tide is the No. 8 seed and will face top-seeded Auburn in Saturday’s match play quarterfinals
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – The No. 9 Alabama men's golf team finished in eighth place overall after 54 holes of stroke play at the 2024 Southeastern Conference Men's Golf Championships, closing Friday's final round with a team total of 2-under par 838 (283-272-283). As a result, the Crimson Tide advances to the match play portion of the championship as the No. 8 seed and will take on No. 1 seed Auburn in Saturday morning's quarterfinal.
The Tide was led by Jonathan Griz, who battled back from a triple bogey on his second hole to shoot 6-under the rest of the way resulting in a final round 3-under par 67. Griz was one of two UA golfers to eagle the par 5, 566-yard 15th hole (JP Cave), as the Alabama golfers combined to shoot 6-under par on that hole for the day.
The Crimson Tide and Tigers will tee off the morning quarterfinal at 6:30 a.m. CT.
Live scoring throughout the match play portion of this year's championship, which is taking place in St. Simons Island, Ga., at the par 70, 7,005-yard Sea Island Golf Club, can be found on Golfstat.com.
Individual Highlights
- Vaulting 23 spots up the leaderboard Friday, Jonathan Griz was the only Crimson Tide golfer to card a round in the 60s (67) in the final round of stroke play and finished tied for 17th overall
- Griz ended the stroke play portion at 1-under 210 (71-71-67) for his fifth top-20 result across his nine tournaments played this year
- JP Cave carded a score of 2-over 72 in round three, and tied for 30th overall with a tournament total of 1-over par 211 (72-67-72)
- Canon Claycomb (71-69-72) and Thomas Ponder (69-66-77) finished the day both tied for 36th overall with matching scores of 2-over par 212
- Jone Free rounds out Alabama's starting five in the event finishing tied for the 46th position with a 4-over 214 (72-70-72)
- Griz and Cave both collected eagles on the par 5, 565-yard hole No. 15, while Claycomb and Free had birdied and both Cave and Ponder had pars to result in the 6-under par total
Tournament Highlights
- Eight teams advanced to the match-play quarterfinals Saturday morning with four teams moving on to the match-play semifinals Saturday afternoon. The final two teams will go head-to-head in the match-play finals on Sunday.
- Top-ranked Auburn (-14) and No. 7 Tennessee (-14) shared the clubhouse lead, with the Tigers edging the Vols for the No. 1 seed
- Second-ranked Vanderbilt (-13) earned the No. 3 seed, followed No. 23 Georgia (-11) and No. 10 Arkansas (-11) who are set to play in the No. 4 vs. No. 5 match
- No. 16 Florida (-10) is the sixth seed, followed by No. 22 Texas A&M (-8) as the seventh seed
- The 2024 SEC Championship will be awarded to the winners of match play, while the individual medalist and runner up will be awarded based on stroke play
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