2023 NCAA Championship Look Back: A Week in Kentucky with the GolfLions

Finishing T-3 definitely gave me a confidence boost heading into NCAA's. The course we played for the Conference tournament wasn't easy so being able to have a nice finish there, and in particular playing well the final two days gave me a confidence boost heading to Kentucky. I give JP a lot of credit for that too because prior to that tournament I had not been playing well for a little while and he just kept believing in me and reminding me to stay confident in my game. Which meant a lot for my mental state heading into conference and to back that up with a nice finish felt good.”

Conference was only disappointing in the fact that we didn't win. But we were competing against one of the best teams (Huntingdon) in the country, on a very difficult golf course at Dalton Golf and Country Club. I think that it helped the guys check back in, realize we had a lot of work to do and eliminated complacency. There were some individual positives to take away from conference that helped. Matt Ariza had an under par 2nd round, and we still had three guys finish in the top 5 (Huber, Ariza, Hebrink). Having good finishes were good for the confidence for Ariza and Huber.

I felt much more comfortable on that golf course knowing I had played well in the fall. It was playing difficult in the fall and it helped me learn what I needed to do to play well in the spring. I even changed some of my clubs up over the off-season to try and help play that course better than the fall.

Eric Penland played a great first round for us, shooting even par. He was under for a lot of it, but had to work through some distractions on the course and still got in at level par.

With multiple rain delays and the constant starting and stopping we stayed in a good mindset and tried to have fun with it. There were other teams we saw doing a lot of complaining about the weather delays, but we all were hanging out, eating, and listening to music just knowing that we had no control over it. After that first round, seeing where we were on the leaderboard we felt like our mindset during those delays had played a big role in keeping us in contention after day one.

That second round was awesome. It was one of those days where nothing really bothered me and I seemed to recover from the bad shots without getting too down on myself. Especially after playing well for about 2/3 of my round on day one and then feeling like I gave a few shots away at the end, bouncing back with my career low round the second day was really special.

I started strong, making birdie on my first two holes and played the par 3’s 2-under for the day, so that took a lot of the pressure off my game. I got into a pretty good groove, just being steady and not trying to do anything too flashy.

The GolfLions were always underdogs, right? So we just embraced that mentality. Why not us. We were in the final group of the NCAA Championship. We had a really nice team dinner the night before with family. On the way into the course on the final round, we all spent some time just opening up and talking about what this moment meant to us. It was really cool just sharing belief and taking a moment to realize how cool this was. I remember walking around the range, you definitely feel it. The other teams not in the mix take notice. You've connected better with the rules officials and committee members, its hard to explain the confidence you can feel walking around the range before going out to try and win an NCAA.

My mindset on that last day was to just go play as well as I could and see where that ended up. It was so cool to be in the last group at a national championship. We had talked about getting in contention for the national championship since the day I came on my visit. It was so rewarding for us to be one of those last teams to tee off on the final day.

We didn't get off to a fantastic start, but we kept heads up and kept plugging along. There were times it looked like we weren't going to walk away with any hardware, even late into the round. But the finish is tough, and we knew we just needed to keep hanging on.

Coming down the stretch of the tournament I knew we were still in the mix and I needed to make sure I posted a good score for the team. My bunker shot was a little short-sided but I hit it perfectly and it led me to a tap in par on 18. Watching all my teammates give it their all and fight to the end was a very fun experience. There was a lot of crazy situations down the stretch, but we all remained in the moment and finished well.

The 17th hole had taken me on a roller coaster throughout the week. I think I tried three different clubs off the tee to try and get a good yardage in. I hit 3 wood and driver the first two times and the last day I decided to go to my 5 wood. Once I hit the fairway I felt way more comfortable judging how the ball was going to react.

I felt really good about that shot because it was in the fairway and it was a perfect full wedge. I was thankful just to see the ball in the fairway because I knew I had a chance to hit a wedge close. Never in a million years did I think I was going to make the shot. I remember thinking it was going to be close right after I hit it, but I definitely never imagined it going in. I remember Coach chest bumped me and my heart was racing incredibly fast. I was only focused on getting my breathing back under control for the last hole the entire walk up to the green.

Absolutely electric atmosphere - I was losing it. I'm sure the yells could be heard all the way to the clubhouse. He went from 1 behind to 1 ahead in an instant. My next thought was to calm Josh down but I looked over to say settle down and he was just grinning was like "Coach - I'm ok but I think YOU gotta settle down a bit!" Funny to think back on. Then I just told him I was there for whatever he needed on 18. More or less I wanted to make it stress free for him the best I could. He's a smart young man and very aware - so he knew where he stood individually as well as the team, and we didn't need to talk about it.

I would say the bunker shot was the most difficult part of that up and down. That is one of the scariest shots in the game and I was only staring at water with no green to work with. I don't know if I could get it that close if I had 10 more golf balls sitting there.

I couldn't feel any part of my body on the putt but I just knew it was going to go in somehow, someway.

I realize how special it was and I’m so grateful to have been a part of it. I can’t thank coach Kircher enough for bringing me in out of the transfer portal and giving me a home in Demorest. Knowing that what we did was historic for the program is something that I’ll always carry with me for the rest of my life.

Having an Individual National Champion and a team finish National Runner Up shows every student athlete that is here presently and into the future that you can pursue excellence at Piedmont as a Division III student-athlete. That we are committed to supporting our programs so that every student-athlete can have that opportunity. Year in and year out our teams at Piedmont are playing some of the best competition in their individual sports in the country. We have the ability to measure our programs with competitive opportunities against those teams. We are unique in Division III athletics because of the challenging schedules our coaches put together for each team at Piedmont. Men's Golf proved that tiny little liberal arts school in Northeast Georgia can compete on a national stage.

The week was a long week and a lot of fun, with. We had a bunch of parental support, plus Madeline, Joe Garwood, Peeps, and then even Delf drove up for the final round. Just felt like we had this little Piedmont travel party everywhere we went. The support from Piedmont was awesome, through texts and calls from other coaches, alumni, made us feel really appreciated. The trophy ceremony and photo sessions on the 18th green afterwards was cool, because all the work was done and we could just reflect

I have watched Josh work since he set foot on our campus in the fall of 2020 and his work ethic is second to none. He has put the work in every day and to see him be rewarded for the hard work and dedication to his sport is absolutely the best moment that I have been a part of in 35 plus years of college athletics. He is a historical figure in Piedmont Athletics as our first National Champion.

It felt great to finish like that. Ever since I got to Piedmont, we always talked about peaking at the right time. We always wanted to play our best golf at the national championship. The first two national championships we played in taught me so much and we gradually did better and better as a team. To see it all come together at this tournament was so special and that feeling is something I will remember for the rest of my life.