Wake Forest Athletics
Men's Golf Competes In 51st Annual ACC Championship
4/14/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
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April 14, 2004
WAKE FOREST MEN'S GOLF
NEWS & NOTES
COMING UP NEXT
April 16-18
2004 ACC Championship
Old North State Club/Uwharrie Point, NC
Par 72 * 7,100 yards
Live scoring available at Golfstat.com.
Participating Teams (9): Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia, Wake Forest
Tee Times: 8:30 a.m. each day
First Round Pairings:
* Maryland, Florida State, Virginia
* Clemson, Duke, Wake Forest
* NC State, North Carolina, Georgia Tech
WFU heads to ACC Championships
One of the conference's oldest and longest-running championships -- The 51st annual ACC Men's Golf Tournament -- takes place this weekend at Old North State Club in Uwharrie Point, N.C. All nine league schools will be competing (18 holes each day) on the par 72, 7,100-yard layout at ONSC. The Deacs will look to claim their 19th overall conference crown and first since 1989. At last year's ACC Championship, Wake Forest finished runners-up to eventual NCAA Champion Clemson by one stroke.
Wake Forest will also look for its first individual champion since Tim Straub captured the title in 1989. Wake Forest's 18 team championships and 20 individual conference medalists are more than any other league school.
The Wake Forest Lineup
Wake Forest's ACC Championship lineup begins with Bill Haas, ranked No. 1 nationally and the 2003 ACC Player of the Year. Haas has played in all 11 events so far this year, finishing among the top 20 in all 11 and among the top 10 in nine. His season stroke average of 68.94 is on pace to set a new NCAA record. Haas has won four events this season, bringing his career total to a school record-tying nine victories.
Sophomore Kyle Reifers has also seen action in all 11 events, and currently ranks seventh among ACC golfers with a 72.28 stroke average. Reifers has five top 10 and seven top 20 finishes so far this season.
A pair of freshmen, Sean Moore and Chad Wilcox, will compete in their first ACC Championship. Wilcox is third on the team in stroke average (74.93) with one top 20 finish to his credit. Moore is fourth on the squad with a 75.59 average. Both players have posted five rounds of par or better this year.
Junior Doug Manchester will also make his ACC Championship debut this weekend. Manchester had a career-best outing last weekend, competing as an individual at the Courtyard by Marriott Intercollegiate in Raleigh. He tied his career-low round (71) and posted a personal-best tournament score of 220 (+4) while finishing 30th.
WFU's ACC Experience
Just two Deacs in this weekend's lineup have previous ACC Championship experience. Bill Haas will compete in his fourth ACC Championship this weekend. As a freshman in 2001, he finished sixth at 3-under 213. In 2002 he was fourth with a 8-under 208. Last year, Haas was the runner-up with a 213, two strokes back of champion Richard Treis of UNC.
Sophomore Kyle Reifers placed 29th last season with a 13-over 229. After opening with rounds of 79-81, Reifers finished strong with a team-low 69 in the final round.
Deacs In The Rankings
Wake Forest is currently ranked 19th in the GolfWorld coaches poll (March 19), 21st in the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) poll (April 8) and 20th in the Golfweek/Sagarin ratings (April 13). The Deacs have held pretty steady in the 'teens in all three sets of rankings this season after being ranked 7th by GolfWorld and 6th by the GCAA in the preseason. Sagarin, which also ranks strength of schedule, lists WFU's 2003-04 tournament slate as the 15th-toughest in the nation.
Individually speaking, Bill Haas tops the charts at No. 1 in the Sagarin ratings, a position he has held all season long. Haas' rating of 67.78 is one-and-a-third rating points better than the No. 2 player, Ryan Moore of UNLV. Haas' head-to-head record so far this season is 808-37-12.
Kyle Reifers, with some strong performances so far this spring, is 44th in the ratings and is the seventh-highest rated ACC player.
Haas Ties Hallberg's Title Record
With his ninth career collegiate victory last weekend at the Courtyard by Marriott Intercollegiate in Raleigh, Bill Haas tied former Deacon Gary Hallberg with the most individual crowns in Wake Forest history.
Haas has pocketed four such titles so far this year, one shy of tying Curtis Strange's school-record five victories set in the 1973-74 season.
Statistically Speaking
So far this season, Bill Haas has counted 98.4 percent of his rounds toward team totals and has shot equal or under par in over 84 percent of his rounds -- both of those marks are on pace to set new single-season school records in those categories ... his season stroke average is on pace to set a new NCAA record ... Haas has also finished among the top 20 in all 11 events entered this season, with nine of those in the top 10 ... Wake Forest boasts two of the top 10 stroke averages in the ACC, as Haas leads the league with 68.94 and Kyle Reifers ranks seventh at 72.28 ... as a team, Wake Forest has shot par or better 12 times this season, or 38 percent of its rounds.
Streaky Deac
Earlier this season, Bill Haas tied his own school record by carding 13th straight rounds under par. The chance to break the record ended with a second-round 79 in the General Jim Hackler Invitational, his highest score of the season. Haas' scoring average was 67.77 during that span. When he originally set the record last season, his stroke average during the streak was 70.00.
Haas is currently on another such streak, bringing six straight rounds under par (and three consecutive rounds in the 60s) into this weekend's ACC Championship. When he recorded 64-69-68 at last week's Courtyard by Marriott Intercollegiate, it was the fourth time in his WFU career he's played an entire tournament in the 60s. No other Deacon has ever recorded more than one such tournament.
No Sophomore Slump
Sophomore Kyle Reifers has already posted a strong season, and has really come on this spring. The second-year Deacon has recorded seven top 20 and five top 10 finishes. He recorded a career-low 65 in the second round of the PING-Arizona Intercollegiate and also finished a career-low tournament score of 204 in that event en route to placing sixth.
Reifers is the only player aside from Haas to lead WFU in an event, and he's done it twice -- tying for fifth at The Preview and seventh at the Hackler Invitational.
