The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga entered the third day of the NCAA Division I men’s golf tournament in a good spot.
Ahead of the last guaranteed round for all 30 schools in the field at Omni La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, California, coach Blaine Woodruff’s team was nicely positioned with an opportunity to advance to the final stages of the competition.
But with one bad day, those dreams faded away.
The Mocs picked the worst time possible to have their worst day, shooting a 17-over-par 305 in the five-play, four-score format to finish at 20-over 884. After 54 holes, they wound up tied for 26th with ninth-ranked Ole Miss and ahead of only three teams: Memphis (887) — the Tigers were the only other unranked team to qualify for the event — Southern California (890) and Florida State (899).
UTC entered the day at 3 over and in a tie for 14th with Tennessee, and had the Mocs been able to hold on to that placement, they would have qualified as one of the top 15 teams for the final round of stroke play Monday, when individual places will be determined and the top eight teams after that will advance to a match play bracket.