ROCKY FACE, Ga. – Alabama golf coach Jay Seawell will have to rearrange the trophy room to make space for a new wall-covering.
He already owns two.
The Crimson Tide captured one of the most prestigious trophies in college golf Sunday – a customized rug for winning the Carpet Capital Collegiate.
“Maybe we’ll just build a bigger building,” he joked. “We’re looking forward to having another rug. These things are pretty big.”
Alabama combined to shoot an 8-under-par 856 at The Farm Golf Club to beat Wake Forest by four strokes and Georgia Tech and Clemson by six.
Auburn finished fifth at 3 over par, Georgia tied Texas Tech for sixth at 12 over par, and Tennessee tied the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga tied for eighth at 16 over.
“We’ve had good preparation in getting here and with five holes to play it was as tight as can be and they ran to the finish line,” Seawell said. “I’m proud of how we went down an bit and came back up.
“We have two young guys who are as good as anybody and they’re not scared so that energy has pumped up the entire team.”
Alabama had three golfers finish tied for 12th or better including freshman Bobby Wyatt who was fourth and sophomore Bud Cauley who tied for fifth. They were the only two golfers with three sub-par rounds.
“To come out and not doing anything crazy but play solid and win is great,” Cauley said. “To miss the biggest tournament of the year last year [NCAA championships] sucked, but it added motivation to those of us who played last year, and this win is going to do nothing but good things for us.”
Despite their stellar tournaments, neither Wyatt or Cauley could make a run at medalist.
Wake Forest junior Lee Bedford shot a 4-under 68 on Sunday – best round of the day – which helped him earn medalist honors at 10 under.
“This is definitely the biggest win I’ve had,” said Bedford, a junior. “It feels so good to finally play solid and have it all come together. I hit it best on Friday, but started scoring yesterday and today.
Teammate Evan Beck finished second making them the first two teammates to finish 1-2 in tournament history. Auburn’s Blayne Barber was third at 6 under.
UTC sophomore Steven Fox tied for seventh, former Baylor golfer Harris English tied for 12th and UTC’s Stephan Jaeger tied for 15th.
“It’s nice to go 1-2 and have a solid team finish,” Bedford said. “It was Evan’s birthday yesterday and we went to Outback and had a nice gathering sing him ‘Happy Birthday.’ But apparently I took a tournament from him.”
UTC’s eighth-place finish in the first tournament of the year – played in by three freshmen, a sophomore and a junior – became a crash-course on college golf.
Coach Mark Guhne said his team passed the test, but by no means did they ace it.
“I like what I see but I know we have some things to work on and some learning,” Guhne said. “Young guys made young-guy mistakes at critical times. We had a good tournament going and let it slip away a bit today.
“They’re young and inexperienced and what they have to work on is pretty simple.”
Immediately after lunch, the Mocs – minus Stephan Jaeger but with freshman Jackson Lockhart – loaded in the team van and headed to Florence, S.C. for the Springhill Suites Collegiate.
They will play 36 holes today and 18 on Tuesday at the same course where the Southern Conference championships will be held – the reason Jaeger is staying behind and four freshmen are going.
“It’s going to be tough physically and mentally to stay focused,” said freshman Davis Bunn who tied for 23rd at 4 over. “But playing the championship course is going to be huge.”
Contact David Uchiyama at duchiyama@timesfreepress.com or (423) 757-6484. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/UchSports