University of Houston
NCAA Championships
Blair Hamilton Ends Stay at NCAA Championships
6/1/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
BRADENTON, Fla. - University of Houston junior Blair Hamilton fired a 74 during the Final Round of the NCAA Championships on Monday afternoon to finish the 72-hole event with a score of 292 and tied for 27th at The Concession Golf Club.
Although the Cougars did not qualify as a team for Monday's action, Hamilton was one of nine individuals who advanced to the Final Round. Starting on No. 1, Hamilton sank five straight pars before a bogey on No. 5.
Fortunately, the Burlington, Ontario, Canada, native rallied impressively with an eagle on the par-5, seventh hole and followed that with his first birdie of the day on the par-4, eighth hole. He added one more birdie on No. 12 and joined LSU's Eric Ricard in a tie for 27th.
With the completion of the Third Round on Monday morning, the Cougars officially finished the NCAA Championships in a tie for 26th with UNLV with a score of 906. The top 15 teams advanced to Monday's Final Round to determine the NCAA individual national champion and the top-8 teams for the match-play bracket for the NCAA team national champion.
In Sunday's final team round, the Cougars saved their best for their final team round. Sunday's team total bettered their previous low by eight shots and was 19 strokes better than Saturday's Second-Round score.
SMU's Bryson Dechambeau won the NCAA individual national championship with a score of 8-under-par 280 to finish one stroke ahead of Washington's Cheng-Tsung Pan.
On the team side, Illinois finished stroke play with a tournament-best score of 1,155 to seize the No. 1 seed for Tuesday's match-play action. Vanderbilt will compete as the No. 2 seed with Georgia (No. 3), Texas (No. 4), USC (No. 5), USF (No. 6), LSU (No. 7) and UCLA (No. 8) following.
Illinois will face UCLA in Tuesday's morning match-play round while Vanderbilt will face LSU. Georgia tees off against USF and Texas-USC meet in the No. 4-5 matchup.
The winners advance to the match-play semifinals on Tuesday afternoon with the national championship match set for Wednesday.
NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS HISTORY
This was the second straight season in which the Cougars will compete at the NCAA Championships. It was the first time since 2000-01 that the program has accomplished that feat.
Robledo, Pilgrim and Martino competed in the second NCAA Championships of their careers. They became the 62nd, 63rd and 64th players in school history to play in multiple NCAA Championships during their careers.
Perras and Hamilton played in their inaugural NCAA Championships this week.
This was the Cougars' 44th appearance as a team at the NCAA Championships. During their rich history, Houston has captured 16 NCAA team national championships and seen eight players win NCAA individual national titles.
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Players Mentioned
