NAPLES, Fla. – Ben van Wyk of the No. 20 Georgia men’s golf team capped off the regular season with a year-best second-place finish at The Calusa Cup on Tuesday afternoon at the Calusa Pines Golf Club.
The Bulldogs earned a fifth-place result after they finished 20-over-par, 884. Van Wyk ended the tournament at five-under, 211, as one of just two in the 42-person field to shoot at least par in all three rounds. The graduate student finished one stroke behind Wake Forest’s Scotty Kennon, the individual champion.
No. 16 Florida won the team title at three-under, 861, finishing six strokes ahead of second-place No. 28 Purdue. No. 34 Wake Forest took home third place with a five-over performance, while No. 15 Georgia Tech and No. 20 Georgia round out the top five.
This marks the second consecutive top-five result for van Wyk after he tied for third at The Goodwin last week. The George, South Africa native has now placed inside the top 10 in five of the team’s nine events. Van Wyk did most of his work at The Calusa Cup on par 4s and par 5s, averaging the field’s best and second-best scores on those holes respectively.
Senior Caleb Manuel earned the team’s second-lowest score during the third round of 73, capping off the tournament with a score of 224 to tie for 22nd place. Graduate Connor Creasy finished two spots ahead at t-20 with a weekend total of seven over, while Buck Brumlow and Camden Smith tied for 34th.
Georgia will now move into postseason play, beginning with the SEC Championships on April 24-28 at Seaside Golf Resort in St. Simon’s Island. The Bulldogs captured two team titles during the regular season at the Puerto Rico Classic in February and The Goodwin in March, marking the fifth time in the last six seasons the team won multiple events.