When Garrett Engle hit his approach shot on the seventh hole Saturday, the very gettable par-5 at Druid Hills Golf Club, he knew it was good. He just didn’t know how good.
Turns out the soft 8-iron from 173 yards bounced once and rolled into the hole for a double-eagle, the rarest feat in golf, and permanently tilted the scoreboard in his favor. Engle, who plays at Tennessee-Chattanooga, went on to shoot a final-round 66 and finish at 22-under 266 to win the Dogwood Invitational.
“There’s a little slope in front of the hole, so I thought I had like 5-6 feet for eagle,” said Engle, who began the day with a one-shot lead. “I mean it was a good shot, but I didn’t think it went in and then Maxwell Ford and the group in front of me were running up the hill and started pointing like it went in.”
Engle followed the albatross – the fourth of his career -- with a bogey but regained the momentum with back-to-back birdies at No. 10 and 11. Birdies at No. 15 and 16, culminated by a 45-foot putt that was tracking the hole from the moment it was struck, finished the matter.
Engle wound up winning by five strokes over Shubham Jaglan of South Florida (67) and Bruce Murphy (70), a Johns Creek product who plays at Tennessee. Cooper Schultz of Kansas State shot the low round of the day (64) and took fourth at 16 under, and Nathan Franks of the University of South Carolina (70) finished fifth at 15 under.
“I knew my game has been trending in the right direction for quite a while now,” Engle said. “I felt like it’s only a matter of time until I put myself in contention. I did that at the Western Intercollegiate and couldn’t finish it off there, so I was really excited to get another opportunity.”
“I just kept telling myself it’s not over, and it wasn’t even close to over,” Engle said. “I still had five or six people inside of three shots on me, and on this golf course you can make a lot of birdies really fast, so I just tried to keep my foot on the pedal.”
Engle won it by playing a smart final round. He took bogey out of play by hitting his tee shots and approaches to safe zone. He did it at No. 14, the uphill par-4 where he pitched to within a couple of feet, and again at No. 15, where he wasn’t about to get pulled into a (bad) hole location.
“You’ve got to keep your foot on the pedal but also play smart because this place can really bite you if you get in the wrong spot,” he said. “I was never out of position all day.”
Engle was flying solo all week. His family remained home in Pennsylvania, and he even carried his own bag, while many other competitors used a caddie. He checked the scores on his cellphone throughout the round and knew exactly where he stood all the time.
“This is definitely a confidence booster,” Engle said. “I’ve been trying to get over the hump of winning for quite some time now. It certainly gets harder the older you get. Hopefully I’ll have a few more moving forward.”
Peachtree Corners’ Maxwell Ford, who plays at North Carolina, and Aidan Kramer, who finished his career at Georgia Tech this spring, tied for sixth at 14 under. Defending champion Logan Hunter of Mississippi State finished eighth at 13 under.
