LAS VEGAS — Oglethorpe senior Michael O’Sullivan won the 2024 Arnold Palmer National Individual Champion Award with a 12 under par final effort to lead the No. 4 Oglethorpe men’s golf team to third place at the title event Friday.
The national championship was held Tuesday-Friday, May 14-17, at Legacy Golf Club and Boulder Creek Golf Club.
Michael O’Sullivan, the Individual National Champion
O’Sullivan gained the lead during round two and did not relinquish it. After shooting 6 under par on the opening round, he moved to the solo lead with a 2 under par on round two, then finished with rounds of 1 under and 3 under across the last 36 holes, enough to become the third individual national champion in the history of Oglethorpe men’s golf.
O’Sullivan shot 2 under on Friday’s front nine and made the turn with a four-stroke lead over the rest of the field. He suffered his first and only bogey of the round on 17 on a par putt that lipped out, but he bounced back with a par on a difficult par 4 18th.
From there, O’Sullivan went to the clubhouse for the next two hours where he watched Methodist’s Cooper Hrabak climb the leaderboard. Hrabak birdied 7-8-9, then trimmed O’Sullivan’s lead to one stroke after another back-to-back birdie stretch on 13-14. Hrabak would also birdie 18, but it came after a bogey on 17 that helped O’Sullivan secure the national championship title by one stroke.
“Such a deserving national champion,” said Head Coach Jim Owen, a finalist for the Dave Williams award which recognizes the national coach of the year. “Mike had a solid plan to underpower the par 3’s and par 4’s and overpower the par 5’s, which were mostly downwind and downhill all week.”
With medalist honors at the national championship, O’Sullivan automatically earned a spot on the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) all-America first team.
Oglethorpe’s Team Finish
For Oglethorpe, the third-place finish marked its highest finish since 2014 when the team finished runner-up.
The Stormy Petrels opened the tournament in ninth place after shooting 285 at Legacy, the third best score at that course on day one. They then moved up to seventh after a 292 on day two, held steady in seventh after a 283 on day three, and finished third after a 289 on day four.
“We were a resilient, tough, and resourceful team all year,” said Owen. “In 11 tournament starts, we won five, second most in school history, had two seconds, the outstanding third this week, a fourth, a sixth, and an eighth. So in effect, nine top-four finishes.
“It took a tremendous amount of patience this week as we kept getting knocked down by a particular hole, and we would scramble and get those strokes back over the next few holes. Our par 5 scoring was third best in the tournament at 28 under, a new school record for 72 holes. After a shaky first round on the par 3’s, we settled in in rounds three and four playing them virtually even par for two days. That propelled us up the leaderboard. The par 5’s were the engine, and the par 3’s kept us heading in the right direction.”
Individuals Following O’Sullivan
Following O’Sullivan, Ryan Dunn finished in the top 50 at T45 after posting four competitive rounds of 75-71-70-76. Sam Karman and Beck Lewis both finished T65, and Jackson Hiller finished at T77.
Lewis had perhaps the biggest highlight of the day with an ace on the par 3 17th. He used a nine iron on the 172-yard hole for his second-ever hole in one, the first he has ever posted in competition.
Oglethorpe Scores | Finishes
- Michael O’Sullivan 66-70-71-69=276 | 1
- Ryan Dunn 75-71-70-76=292 | T45
- Sam Karman 72-79-70-75=296 | T65
- Beck Lewis 80-72-73-71=296 | T65
- Jackson Hiller 72-82-72-74=300 | T77
- Oglethorpe 285-292-283-289=1149 | T3
Championship Notes
- Oglethorpe dominated the par 5’s shooting 28 under par to rank third.
- The Petrels also ranked second in the field with four eagles, two coming from Hiller.
- The Petrels were fifth in birdies with 66 and ninth in pars with 219.
- O’Sullivan led the field in par 4 scoring at a stunning 3 under, and he ranked fifth on par 5’s at 10 under.
- Lewis and Dunn were even par on the par 3’s.
- O’Sullivan’s 18 birdies ranked fourth, and his 48 pars ranked 11th alongside Lewis.
- Hiller’s two eagles co-led the field.
Hole-By-Hole Notes
- O’Sullivan birdied nine of the 18 holes at Boulder Creek in the three days the tournament was held there. He was especially effective on 5-6-7 where he posted five birdies in nine tries, and similarly on 12-13-14 where he posted four birdies on that stretch.
- Dunn had a great stretch on 11-12-13 this week at Boulder Creek as he shot 3 under across those three holes. He was also three under on holes 1-2-3. He birdied 11 of the 18 holes at some point in the three rounds.
- Hiller shot three under on hole 2 over the three rounds at Boulder Creek. He also birdied the par 5 13th all three times.
Season Notes
- Oglethorpe won five tournaments this year, including three out of the last four heading into the national championships. The five tournament wins is second most in program history trailing only the 2013 team which won seven tournaments.
- Tournament wins included the Southern Athletic Association Championship for the third straight year where Lewis won co-medalist honors.
- The Petrels finish in the top eight in all 11 events of the 2023-24 schedule. This spring, they had no finishes lower than sixth, and they closed the home stretch with win, win, runner-up, Southern Athletic Association win and this week’s third at the NCAA Championships.
- Oglethorpe ranked in the top four all season, spending most of the season at No. 3. This marked its highest national ranking since winning the national title in 2012.
- This was O’Sullivan’s third win of the season. In winning the national title, he joined Olafur Loftsson (2009 at Port St. Lucie, Florida / PGA Village) and Anthony Maccaglia (2012 at Howie-in-the-Hills, Florida / Mission Inn Resort and Golf Club) as Oglethorpe’s individual national champions.
Season Award Winners
- O’Sullivan earned the individual national title, automatically placing him on the all-America first team.
- Lewis, the co-medalist at the SAA Championships, earned a spot on the PING all-region team.
- Head Coach Jim Owen, the SAA coach of the year for the third year in a row and eighth time in the 11 seasons of the SAA’s existence, was named a finalist for the Dave Williams award, which recognizes the national coach of the year.
- All five Petrels who competed at the national championships were on the all-conference team. Lewis and O’Sullivan were co-players of the year for the SAA and made the all-conference first team. Karman also made first team. Dunn and Hiller were co-newcomers of the year and made the all-conference second team.
- Three Petrels have received SAA athlete of the week nods.
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