Wake Forest opens fall with Rod Myers Invitational win

Just in time for the start of the fall college season, Wake Forest got its full squad assembled. After leading the Great Britain and Ireland team last week at the Walker Cup in his native England, Alex Fitzpatrick returned to the Demon Deacon roster in time to contribute to a season-opening victory at the Rod Myers Invitational.

Fitzpatrick, returning for his sophomore season, had a final-round 69 at Duke University Golf Club in Durham, N.C., the low round of the day for his team, as Wake Forest won the team title by three shots. That was no small feat, considering they had to stay ahead of Duke, the home team.

Wake Forest closed with a 7-under 281 team score on Sunday, the best of the day. That got them to 22 under for the week, while Duke was 19 under.

Parker Gillam, who reached he Round of 32 at the U.S. Amateur, led the Demon Deacons with a fourth-place finish at 8 under, followed by Eric Bae at 6 under and in a tie for fifth. Fitzpatrick was T-9 at 3 under.

Louisville, led by sophomore Matthias Schmid (the reigning European Amateur champion), was the next closest team at 6 under.

"The guys went out today and played some very, very good golf," Wake Forest head coach Jerry Haas said. "We knew if we could get off to a good start we could have a shot, and we shot 10-under on the front to take the lead. We got to 12-under before getting to some challenging holes to finish, but we did just enough to bring home the victory. Great contribution from everyone this week when your worst finisher is T-21st. We saw a lot of good things from a very young team this weekend."

In the individual competition, UNC-Greensboro’s Jonathan Brightwell had a final-round 67 to get to 11 under and score a one-shot individual win over Duke’s Adrien Pendaries.

Quotes from Wake Forest Athletics used in this story