GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A putt to win the NCAA individual men's championship? No problem. A drive from the 18th fairway to get his teammates in position to clinch the national title? Yeah, got that, too. Fred Biondi swears neither of those pressure-packed moments really phased him that much.
But this will be different.
"In golf, I know what I'm doing," Biondi said. "This is going to be like an out-of-body experience."
This will be Biondi's turn as honorary "Mr. Two Bits" Saturday night for the 2023 Florida football team's home football opener against McNeese at Spurrier/Florida Field. Biondi grew up in Brazil before moving to the Sunshine State at the age of 14, so the tradition made famous by the late George Edmondson was not part of his upbringing. Neither were the Gators, actually. In fact, Biondi recalls his father, Fernando, had a hat with the UF logo "F" on it. Young Fred just assumed the "F" was for "Fernando."
But after five years on campus, a slew of All-America and All-Southeastern Conference honors, a finance degree and enough championship hardware to stuff a trophy case, Biondi is a Gator through and through. Now he has to come through in the clutch for his football team.
The role will require some YouTube crash-coursing, with plenty of celebrity "Two Bits" options – Steve Spurrier, Danny Wuerffel, Cris Collinsworth, Dara Torres and many, many more – on the web to surf and scout. Biondi will be just the third golfer to do the pre-game celebrity honor (joining Chris DiMarco and Billy Horschel), which this year will mark the 10th anniversary since former tailback Errict Rhett was the first to don Edmondson's trademark yellow shirt, khaki pants and cardboard signs and lead the crowd through the iconic chant.
"When I got to Florida and saw who was doing it, I was like, 'What is that?' " Biondi said.
He knows now.
He better know really well.
Fred Biondi exults after his match-clinching shot May 31 at Scottsdale, Ariz., that locked up UF's first men's golf team championship since 2001.
Biondi definitely knows about being a Gator. What the fifth-year senior did – alongside Ricky Castillo, Yuxin Lin, John DuBois and Matthew Kress – in taking Gator Nation on the golf version of a week-long thrill ride last May, first coming from four strokes down on the final day of stroke play to win the NCAA indy crown, then joining forces with his steely-eyed teammates in the program's first foray into the match play championship rounds. UF came from behind to defeat Virginia in the quarterfinals and rival Florida State in the semifinals (on the same day, no less), then beat Georgia Tech in the NCAA final for the program's first national championship in 22 years.
Not a bad way to end a collegiate career, nor launch a professional one on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he currently is joined by both Castillo and Lin.
On Saturday night, it'll just him, under the lights, with all those orange-and-blue eyes looking on.
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