Staff and Wire Report
TOLEDO, Ohio -- The Texas A&M men's golf team held its third round together well enough to earn a spot in the Elite Eight on Thursday at the NCAA Championship at Inverness Golf Club.
The seventh-seeded Aggies shot a team 295 and finished at 869, tied for seventh with No. 1 Georgia. A&M will face No. 2 seed Arizona State in the match play quarterfinal at 7:30 a.m. Friday.
A&M's Conrad Shindler shot an even-par 71 and played a pivotal role in the Aggies reaching the final eight.
"What a great tournament for Conrad," A&M head coach J.T. Higgins said. "He saved our season with his back nine today. He hit it great, made some great par saves and was tough down the stretch."
The Aggies began Thursday's round in third place but quickly slipped out of the top eight after going 10 over through the first 10 holes.
Shindler helped bring the Aggies back with an eagle on the par-5 13th after he hit a 194-yard 7-iron approach to within a foot of the hole. He followed with a birdie on the 14th to get back to even and parred in.
Shindler (75-68-71-214) tied for 13th, the highest individual finish by an Aggie since Danny Briggs placed eighth in 1982. The only other Top 10 finish at nationals by an A&M player came in 1972, when Steve Veriato placed 10th.
In other Elite Eight matchups, No. 1 Oklahoma State will face No. 8 Georgia, No. 3 USC will play No. 6 Michigan and No. 4 Arkansas will face No. 5 Washington.
In A&M's match, the Aggies' Shindler will face Arizona State's Scott Pinckney, while Matt Van Zandt will face ASU's Jesper Kennegard. A&M's John Hurley will play Chan Kim, while Andrea Pavan will play ASU's Stephan Gross and Bronson Burgoon will face ASU's Knut Borsheim.
The winning team in the best-of-5 matches format will advance to Friday afternoon's semifinals. The championship match is set for Saturday.
"Arizona State is one of the great programs in golf history, and they are really good again this year," Higgins said. "They are also hot right now having won the West Regional and finishing second here in medal play. We will have our work cut out for us, but I think we match up well, and we fully expect to advance to the Final Four Friday afternoon."
Because the quarterfinal losers will tie for fifth in the final NCAA Championship standings, A&M already has matched the 1961 team for the second-best finish in school history. A&M's highest finish was fourth in 1982.
"This has been an incredible year for this program," Higgins said. "These guys have so much to be proud of, and I could not have asked for more -- except maybe three more wins."
In individual play, North Carolina State's Matt Hill trailed by two strokes with just eight holes left.
But Hill made three birdies down the stretch and then played keepaway with the lead to capture the top individual prize Thursday at Inverness Club.
"I'm pretty pumped up, that's for sure, and a little bit relieved at the same time," Hill said after shooting his third consecutive 2-under 69 to finish at 6-under 207.
The tall Canadian started the day tied for the lead with Georgia's Russell Henley, who lapsed to a 75 to finish at 213. Starting on the 10th hole, Hill played the first 10 holes in even par and by that point trailed TCU's Tom Hoge by two shots.
Clemson junior Kyle Stanley, who matched the day's low round with a 66, was second by two strokes. He got a close look at Hill's play.
"You have to tip your hat to Matt. I played with him all three days and he played some incredible golf," Stanley said. "Obviously, he's used to winning. And he played great."
Hill, who finished the season with eight wins, picked up the pace. The sophomore from Bright's Grove, Ontario -- also PGA Tour star Mike Weir's hometown -- birdied holes No. 2 and 5 to regain the lead while those around him were falling victim to the wet conditions, which made the greens receptive but the course even longer.
Hill bogeyed the long, par-4 seventh hole after finding the thick rough off the tee, but all but locked up the win with a birdie at the par-5 eighth. He cut the corner with a drive that caught a slope and ended up almost 370 yards from the tee. From there he hit a 6 iron about 220 yards to middle of the green and two-putted for the birdie from 30 feet.
"I didn't really want to know where I stood until I was coming down the stretch," he said. "It was a little bit nerve-racking on a few of the holes but as soon as I found out I had a two-shot lead it was maybe a little bit more comfortable. The bogey kind of made it a little tougher, and then I guess that birdie definitely helped on 8 when that putt snuck in there."
No one else was making a move. Stanley parred the last five holes. One group ahead, Hoge's lead had melted with bogeys at holes 5, 6 and 7. The last man standing was Hill.
He locked up the win with a two-putt par on his final hole, pumping his fist as the 3-footer fell into the cup.
"This whole season's been amazing," Hill said. "To win this is really icing on the cake and it's really special to me. I really worked really hard to get here."
Tom Glissmeyer of Southern California (66), Rickie Fowler (68) of the low team through 54 holes of medal play, Oklahoma State, and Hoge (70) tied for third at 3-under 210.
Glissmeyer said Hill deserves to be the national player of the year.
"He's proving that he's, if not the best, then one of the best in the country," Glissmeyer said.
Only nine players in the 156-man field broke par at the 7,255-yard layout, which has also hosted PGA Championships in 1986 (won by Bob Tway on a dramatic sand shot on the 72nd hole to defeat Greg Norman) and '93 (Paul Azinger edged Norman in a playoff), U.S. Opens in 1920 (Ted Ray), '31 (Billy Burke), '57 (Dick Mayer) and '79 (Hale Irwin), the U.S. Amateur (Craig Stadler) in 1973 and the U.S. Senior Open in 2003 (Bruce Lietzke).
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