NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. (WAVY) – Two Christopher Newport University men’s golfers were in the hunt for an individual national title up until the final hole, but alas, they will have to settle for a still-stellar share of national runners-up honors.
Captains’ seniors Alex Price (-6) and Robb Kinder (-6) shared second place honors in the NCAA men’s golf Division III Championships, while the team finished +9 overall in a program-best sixth place.
It is Kinder’s second national runner-up finish and is the first since 2010 to do it multiple times at the Division III level. Price, meanwhile, put in the best postseason round in school history, charging up the leaderboard with a five-under 67 on the final day and joins Kinder and Scott Scovil, the 1994 national champion, as the only players in Captains’ history to finish in the top five in the national championships.
Price, Division III’s top-ranked men’s golfer, trailed by four shots heading into the final round but had three birdies on his first five holes on the course at the Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky. He added a fourth birdie on the front nine, and then added a pair of birdies to start the back nine to take the lead.
Kinder was right behind Price for much of the final round and finished the final round in a one-under 71. After Price had a double bogey on 18 to drop him into a tie with Kinder, they had to wait out the rest of the teams still on the course.
But as they awaited a possible playoff to determine which Captain would win the national championship, Josh Hebrink of Piedmont holed out from the fairway on 17 for an eagle-2 to take the lead, and then he saved par with a bunker shot to within eight feet before sinking his putt and winning the national title.
Carnegie Mellon, at one-under par, won the team championship, followed by Piedmont, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, Methodist and St. John’s (Minn.) and then Christopher Newport.
The Captains beat its previous best eighth-place finish in 2021, and shattered its program record for a 72-hole tournament with a 1,161 total (286-291-297-287), 32 strokes better than their team total two years ago.
