Austin Langdale
NEW LONDON, NC (April 24, 2016) - No. 11 Clemson (839) has gone wire-to-wire at Old North State Club and won their 10th ACC Championship title and first since 2004. It is the ninth league title for head coach Larry Penley. Clemson extended their lead each day and ended up winning by 11-strokes over No. 14 Wake Forest (850). The Tigers were able to exact a bit of revenge on the ACC field after losing in a playoff last year to Georgia Tech.
“When we lost in the playoff to Georgia Tech last year I was starting to wonder if we were ever going to win again," Clemson head coach Larry Penley said following Sunday's final round. But we had three guys back from last year who experienced that and they had this tournament circled on their calendar. Last year’s experience motivated them, especially our seniors (Miller Capps and Stephen Behr)."
Penley in his 33rd year at the helm of Clemson also picked up his 68th career win. He is now second in all-time ACC wins behind former Wake Forest head coach Jesse Haddock and his 83 victorious.
“We had confidence we could win this tournament, but especially after the first round when we shot 15-under 273. We knew we were going to have to play aggressively and we did the entire tournament," Penley said.
For the first time in school history Clemson placed all five players in the top-16 with junior Austin Langdale (-7) and freshman Bryson Nimmer (-7) leading the way tying for fourth. Senior Miller Capps (-3) also finished in the top-10 tying for ninth while fellow fourth year Stephen Behr (-2) was T13. The historic Clemson team was rounded out by a T16 from junior Carson Young (E).
In the medalist race Louisville senior Robin Sciot-Siegrist (-10) of France stormed to the top of the leaderboard to claim his second consecutive ACC title. It is only the fourth time in league history that a player has gone back-to-back and the first time since Clemson's Charles Warren in 1997-1998. Sciot-Siegrist began the day 3-under and in a tie for sixth but fired a bogey-free closing 7-under 65 to win by one-stroke.
"I putted way better (today)," Louisville's Robin Sciot-Siegrist said. "I actually hit the ball better on Friday, and today I just rolled a lot of the putts in and had good momentum towards the end."
A future European Palmer Cup participant, Sciot-Siegrist began slowly. Teeing off on No. 10 Sciot-Siegrist parred the first seven holes to get off to quiet start. Sciot-Siegrist then got things rolling; on 17 it was a birdie, then on 18 an eagle before another birdie on No. 1 and in a blink of an eye he was 7-under for the tournament.
"(Jacob McBride) started earlier than me with two birdies, and I had to catch up," said Sciot-Siegrist. "I made a birdie and eagle to come back a little bit, and then I had a great stretch. It was a great battle toward the end, it wasn't until the last hole, honestly. It was great."
Following a par on the 2nd hole Sciot-Siegrist got going again with birdies on three of the next four holes, completing a 7-under eight hole stretch. In all Sciot-Siegrist birdied five and eagled a hole during the final round.
Sciot-Siegrist finished a shot better then North Carolina State junior Jacob McBride (-9) and Duke sophomore Jake Shuman (-9) as they shared second place. 36-hole leader Davis Womble (-7) of Wake Forest finished in a three-way tie for fourth.
-Clemson and Louisville athletics contributed to this story
ABOUT THE ACC Championship
Men's collegiate championship of the
Atlantic Coast Conference. 54 holes of stroke play
(team and individual competitions) followed by match
play.
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