Florida Men’s Golf falls in NCAA semifinals

The Florida men’s golf team was eliminated from the NCAA Tournament on Tuesday afternoon. After an impressive run, their 2024-2025 season ended with a 3-0 loss to Virginia in the semifinals at Omni La Costa. The team last appeared in the semifinals during the 2023 season, in which they went on to win the title.

No.7 seed Virginia was in control for most of the match and at one point led four out of five of the pairings. The Gators attempted to rally back and squared four matches with seven holes or less left. Ultimately, UVA came out on top. Virginia’s Maxi Puregger secured a 4&3 win over Matthew Kress. That was followed by Josh Duangmanee’s 2-up win over Jack Turner.

UVA’s Ben James and Florida’s Luke Poulter were tied going into the 18th, resulting in a 1-up victory for James. Zack Swanwick’s and Ian Gilligan’s matches went unfinished resulting in an overall Gators loss. Gilligan, who was up one stroke, finished fourth in the PGA Tour U rankings and will join the Korn Ferry Tour now that his senior season is over.

https://twitter.com/GatorsGolf/status/1927543453451178379

Despite the loss, head coach J.C. Deacon expressed his pride in what the team has accomplished this season. “I could not be more proud of this group. This obviously stings big time right now, getting this close and not being able to get over the finish line. When we have a little time to look back, we will see that we accomplished a lot more than the wins,” said Deacon, a finalist for coach of the year.

Postseason

The Gators won the SEC championship this season as well as the Bremerton regional before making their way to the NCAA tournament. The Bremerton title was Deacon’s second regional victory in his time with Florida.

This was Florida’s fifth straight NCAA tournament and the team entered match play as the No.2 seed. The Gators faced Texas in the quarterfinals and were down 2-0. Florida went on to win the last three matches to advance to the Final Four.

Virginia now faces Oklahoma State in today’s national championship round.