Playoff loss in final match — Colorado Christian’s only defeat of the season vs. an NCAA Div. II opponent — keeps Cougars from 2nd straight national title
By Gary Baines – 5/23/2025
The Colorado Christian University men’s golf team was ever so close to returning to college golf’s promised land.
Within one hole, it turned out.
The Cougars were involved in a team playoff in Friday’s title match, with the men’s NCAA Division II national championship at stake. If they won, they’d become the first men’s DII golf back-to-back national champs since Lynn won in 2018 and ’19. And they would have become the 14th men’s team in DII golf to have won at least two straight national titles.
And here’s the thing: CCU was undefeated against DII competition — ALL SEASON. It came into Friday’s match 151-0 vs. DII opponents during the 2024-25 campaign.
Alas, the Cougars lone DII loss this year not only kept them from an extraordinarily rare unbeaten season within their NCAA division, but it denied them another national championship.
In a title match in which CCU led most of the way at PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., West Florida prevailed in a team sudden-death playoff on the par-5 10th hole, snatching the national championship. With the top four scores from each school counting toward the aggregate team total, the Argonauts posted a 5-under-par total on No. 10, while Colorado Christian was 4 under. Sophomore Per Ekelund sank a very long eagle putt that helped put West Florida over the top. Junior Eddie Lee’s 8-foot birdie gave the Argos the clincher for victory.
Thus ended a spectacular run by CCU, which last year became the first Colorado-based golf program — regardless of gender or classification — to claim an NCAA national team title. The Cougars won 10 of their 12 tournaments this season, with the lone exceptions being the NCAA nationals and the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate in February, when Division I team North Carolina-Charlotte beat CCU by four strokes in a 15-school field comprised almost entirely of DI programs.
Going back to the end of last season, coach Mark Hull’s Cougars have claimed team titles in 14 of their last 18 tournaments. Hull has coached CCU since 2005.
This season, CCU players won or shared 10 individual championships this season — senior Adam Duncan (four), senior Xavier Bighaus (two), sophomore Sungyeop Cho (two) and graduate student Sangha Park (two).
On Friday, after putting the finishing touches on its 4-1 semifinal victory over North Georgia, Colorado Christian did battle in the title match with West Florida, the No. 2-ranked team in men’s DII. CCU had the upper hand most of the way, but West Florida took a 3-2 lead in the middle of the back nine. And when lightning delayed play in the afternoon for more than four hours, the match was tied at 2.5.
Duncan, the top-ranked individual in men’s DII, led West Florida sophomore TJ Thompson, by four strokes through 12 holes. But Thompson birdied 17 to tie Duncan, then both players birdied 18 to match 2-under-par 70s, leading to a team playoff to determine the national champion. Two groups of five players — three from one team and two from the other — played the 10th hole to decide things. And West Florida took advantage of the par-5 more than did CCU.
Overall for the three matches at NCAA nationals, Duncan and Cho went 2-0-1, Bighaus and Park 2-1 and Jones 1-2. Park tied for second individually on Wednesday in the stroke-play portion of the national championship.
In medal-match play, individual golfers compete head to head in a match, but on a cumulative-stroke-play basis. Whichever player finishes the round in fewer strokes wins his individual match. There’s five individual matches for each team competition.
For all the results from the men’s DII nationals, CLICK HERE.
CU’s Justin Biwer went bogey-free in round 1 of the Div. I nationals.
Hometown Boy Justin Biwer Sparks Buffs on Day 1: The University of Colorado men started strong at their second full-team trip to the NCAA Division I nationals in the last three years.
The Buffs finished at 1 over par as a team in round 1 at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., which puts them in a tie for eighth place out of the 30-team field. CU trails leaders Oklahoma by nine strokes, but is just four shots out of second place.
CU came into nationals ranked 29th in the country in Division I golf.
Buffs senior Justin Biwer, competing in his college finale near his hometown of San Diego, landed in fourth place on the individual leaderboard with a bogey-free 4-under-par 68, which left him two out of the lead. CU sophomore Brandon Knight posted a 72, senior Dylan McDermott a 73, sophomore Ty Holbrook a 76 and junior Hunter Swanson a 78. As is typical in college golf, the top four scores for a given school each day count toward the team total.
“When we got here on Tuesday, it felt really nice to be back home, and to play a tournament like this back in my hometown,” Biwer told CUBuffs.com.”And it being my last college event and the importance of it, is a pretty cool thing.”
At nationals, 30 teams and six individuals play stroke-play rounds Friday, Saturday and Sunday, after which the field will be cut to the top 15 schools, along with the top nine individuals not on an advancing team. The individual champion will be determined after Monday’s fourth round, and the top eight teams after 72 holes will advance to the medal-match play quarterfinals.
“Overall ,a very good start to the tournament,” CU head coach Roy Edwards said on Friday. “Justin had a really strong round and was very consistent all day. Dylan hung in there and Brandon’s round of even was very good as well. Ty was off his game but really hung in there at the end and did a nice job. Hunter didn’t play his best but this is a good course for him and he will have a good rest of the week.
“There is almost always a big advantage to playing in the morning.We play in the afternoon (Saturday), when the wind has a tendency to pick up, so we just have to do what we’ve done all season, and that’s staying in the proper mindset. The team’s main goal all week is just to be consistent in that mindset and attitude, and our competitiveness today was indicative of that.”
For all the results from the men’s DI nationals, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com