GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida golf team's flight home landed in Orlando around 12:30 a.m. Thursday. By then, of course, all the popular theme parks in town were closed, but as far as Coach
J.C. Deacon was concerned no thrill ride at Disney, Universal or Sea World could have matched the rollercoaster the Gators took at the NCAA Bath Regional this week that culminated with a stirring, spectacular comeback Wednesday at Eagle Eye Golf Club.
UF, seeded second in the regional and ranked 10th in the country, entered Wednesday's third and final round seven shots behind the top-five cut line and answered the challenge by posting a Round 3-best 12-under team score that netted a fourth-place finish and advanced the Gators to the NCAA Championships next week at Grayhawk in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"The last seven holes, we just went off," Deacon said late Wednesday night. "I mean, it was big-boy golf. We played like a championship team."
And like a poised, mature team, led by a trio of seniors in
Fred Biondi,
Ricky Castillo and
Yuxin Lin, each of whom finished the tournament at 4-under (tying for 11th individually), including Lin's blistering round of 66 on the final day.
It was a performance befitting the team that on April 23 captured the program's first Southeastern Conference crown since 2011, when it upset top-ranked Vanderbilt in the match-play final to give Deacon his first league title. Now the Gators have some momentum — not to mention another reference point for when their backs are against the wall — as they head to the NCAA Championships for a record 56th time, including the sixth time under Deacon.
This squad will go as one of his favorites to date.
"They just keep doing it," Deacon said. "Everything I ask of them, they answer the call."
Their ability to focus on the next shot and move on from adversity has proved to be elite.
The Gators opened the regional Monday with a thud, sitting dead-last — behind even Purdue-Fort Wayne — among the 13-team field through nine holes after shooting a collective 3-over. UF flipped the script on the back nine, keyed by rounds of 69 from Biondi and Castillo, to post a 4-under score of 280, which had the team in seventh place, including a shot back of Oregon and Little Rock, who shared the No. 5 spot that represented the cut line to qualify for the NCAA Championships.
Gators senior Fred Biondi, who kept his team in the hunt with scores of 69 and 68 in rounds 1 and 2 at regional, lines up a putt during Wednesday's third round.
Whatever energy Florida rode to its Monday finish didn't show up Tuesday, save a bogey-free round of 69 by Biondi. The Gators shot an aggregate even-par 284 and ended the day tied with Kansas State in sixth place, but still seven shots behind fifth-place Michigan State.
"There was a lot of griping and bitching from the guys," Deacon said. "They weren't happy and I was a little concerned, but honestly I thought we were playing pretty good. We just needed to make some more putts."
Deacon has been known to go at his guys when warranted, but took a different tact with the challenge put to this group. He talked about the comeback at regionals two years ago at Che Elum, Wash., when the Gators went into Round 3 in eighth place (six shots behind the cut line) and surged to qualify. He told them to envision that kind of rally — "I painted them a positive, uplifting picture," Deacon said — and called on Castillo and Lin, who were part of that memorable moment, to lead the team and do it again.
He threw one more point in for reference.
"We're the Gators. We got a little something on our name," Deacon said. "When the Gators start making a move, everyone out there will know about it."
That's pretty much how the day went, but it wasn't without a little drama.
After a torrid start that threw UF into the top five, a mini-Gator bogey train reared itself about the same time K-State was putting together a mini-birdie barrage. Just like that, Florida was four shots off the cut line.
That's when the upperclassmen took over, with Lin, Castillo, Biondi and fellow senior
John DuBois, the 2022 SEC individual champion, playing the final seven holes at an aggregate 7-under par. Not only did the Gators blow past K-State and the cut line, they left 15th-ranked Texas in their wake and finished fourth.
The next few days will about decompressing from an emotional and pressure-packed week in time to be at their best — and mentally sharpest — for the trip to Arizona and the NCAA Championships. The Gators last won a national title in 2001 and have six top-10 finishes since 2000, but have qualified for six of the seven championships contested during Deacon's eight previous seasons (COVID canceled 2020), with their best showing on his watch a 10th place in 2022.
The NCAA went to a match-play format for the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals in 2009. The Gators have never tasted that element at the championships.
Maybe this will be the year.
"They're good, their competitive and they're not scared," Deacon said. "I can't wait to see how they respond."
