The No. 2 Florida State men's golf team collapsed a little bit down the stretch Wednesday.
The Seminoles finished off the final round of their NCAA Tallahassee Regional with back-to-back bogeys on 18. Which meant they only won the tournament by 17 (Seventeen!) strokes.
Florida State, which has been ranked No. 1 for multiple weeks this season, showed off its supreme firepower over the three-day tournament by blistering the course at Seminole Legacy Golf Club for an overall score of 34 under-par. That was 17 shots better than second-place Georgia.
"This team has been really focused every single day," FSU head golf coach Trey Jones said. "And we (told them), 'Just don't lose your focus in what you're doing. And go out today and do something special.'"
They certainly did that.
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Florida State came into the final round with an eight-shot lead. And then the Seminoles shot the best round of the day as a team, going 10-under par to reach -34.
The No. 1-ranked player in the country, John Pak, fired a 69 on Wednesday and finished fourth in the individual standings. His FSU teammate, Vincent Norrman, also shot a 69 and finished third.
The team's lowest score of the day actually came from its No. 4 player, Frederick Kjettrup, who fired a 68 to storm back up the leaderboard and finish in a tie for 17th. All five FSU players finished in the Top 20. And all five had at least one round of 68 or better.
Freshman Brett Roberts finished in a tie for 5th, and Cole Anderson was in a tie for 14th.
"I think that shows that we have a lot of depth in our team," Pak said. "And we even have the three guys sitting at home who could easily shoot 67 out here as well. That just proves that we are a deep team and we have a lot of weapons on our team."
With the victory, FSU advances to the national tournament out in Scottsdale, Ariz. The top five teams in each of the six regionals this week advance to play at the Grayhawk Golf Club from May 28-June 2.
The format is a three-day stroke play event, with the top eight teams then going to match play to decide the 2021 national champion.
The Seminoles have been in this position plenty of times under head coach Trey Jones. And they've advanced to the Final Four of match play before, but they've never been able to crack through and win a national title.
After his team's monster win this week at its home course, Jones said he didn't like comparing the current team to former ones, but he did admit this as good as he's felt about a team heading into nationals.
"Absolutely," Jones said. "The thing about this one is when you've got a player like John Pak on the team, and we've had Brooks (Koepka) and Daniel (Berger) on the team before, that goes a long ways when you get late into a tournament (and) you get late into things.
"And the thing that goes unheard of is ... we're playing three freshmen right now. So, that's going to be a great experience for them as well."
Jones said Pak will actually not fly out with the team to Arizona because he'll be playing in a U.S. Open qualifier in Texas. Instead, he'll meet the team in Scottsdale after he's done in Dallas.
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