Breaking: Tar Heels make it to the NCAA Championship round of eight…

The NCAA Men’s Golf Team Championships final rounds will begin later today in California, and the Tar Heels of North Carolina will be involved in the action.

The Tar Heels will now compete in the eight-team match play bracket over the course of the following two days after placing third as a team in the competition’s four-round stroke play round

. During the four rounds, UNC shot a combined +11, finishing third behind Vanderbilt and Illinois, matching with Virginia.

Carolina is one of just two teams to finish below par in the fourth round of the competition on Monday, so they are in really excellent shape going into this phase.

The golfers in Carolina as a whole finished Sunday’s round at -4, with Illinois being the only other team to finish below par. Following their strong but unimpressive first three rounds, Dylan Menante’s third round helped the Heels surge up the standings.

The remaining eight teams will now be seeded and placed in a bracket to determine who will win the national team championship.

Each team will field five players to face five from their rivals in five match play rounds to make up this portion of the competition.

Up until a national champion is established, the team that wins three of those match play head-to-heads will win and move on to the next round.

UNC is seeded fourth in the bracket and will face opposition in that phase of the competition.

On the last day of competition, they overtook Florida State in the standings, and they will now face them. #1 Illinois vs. #8 Georgia Tech, #2 Vanderbilt vs. #7 Ohio State, and #3 Virginia vs. #6 Auburn make up the remaining bracket.

Not only do the first four stroke play rounds qualify for the team title bracket, but they also serve as the individual NCAA championship. Peter Fountain of UNC had the best result in that section, finishing tied for 20th at +2.

Five golfers from Tar Heel University placed in the top 50 overall in the individual competition, but none of them was nearly good enough to really challenge for the national title.

From now on, things will undoubtedly get harder, but the Tar Heels have been making inroads into the golf field for a few years. Wishing them success as they look to increase UNC’s record of national titles.