The Dunes Golf and Beach Club now hosts a PGA Tour event, and the 26th annual General Hackler Championship field featured five other teams in the top 45 in the country.
But reigning national champion Auburn showed little reverence for the venerable golf course, and less regard for its opponents this week.
The Tigers, who are ranked No. 1 in the Scoreboard national rankings, set a pair of tournament records Tuesday and swept the team and individual titles in the 16-school event.
Auburn set a tournament record with a 33-under 831 total by closing the 54-hole tournament Tuesday with a single-round record 19-under 269 to defeat runner-up No. 39 Louisville by 17 shots.
Tigers senior Brendan Valdes shot a 7-under 65 Tuesday with an eagle, birdie and two pars on his final four holes to vault past Duke’s Ethan Evans and win the individual title by a stroke with a 12-under 204.
“We don’t talk a lot about expectations, we talk a little bit about superior confidence and being an elite competitor, and if we can do those two things then we’re going to be fine, because we’ve got some great ball strikers,” 16-year Auburn coach Nick Clinard said. “We’ve got some guys who believe in each other and they believe in themselves, and that’s pretty powerful.”
Host Coastal Carolina finished eighth at 9-over 873, and Chanticleers junior Max Bengtsson of Sweden tied for third at 8-under 208 with a 2-under round Tuesday.
The Dunes Club’s greens were receptive this week and the wind was formidable in the first two rounds but was more mild on Tuesday.
“The greens were pretty receptive, I think that’s why you see the scores pretty good,” Clinard said. “We could hit 6-irons and hold them pretty quick. So you get some good ball-strikers that can throw it at some flags and stop it even though you’re playing in 20 or 30 mile-per-hour winds.”
Auburn won the 2022 Hackler as well with a 25-under total and became the fifth program with multiple Hackler titles joining Wake Forest, Arkansas, East Tennessee State and North Florida.
Auburn had five players in the top 10 as sophomores Jackson Koivun and Josiah Gilbert tied for third at 8 under, and Ryan Eschleman tied for ninth at 5-under with teammate Cayden Pope, who played as an individual.
The win is Auburn’s second straight this spring season.
“[The national title] definitely gives us a boost of confidence, but what we did last year is last year so we’re just trying to take this one step at a time,” Valdes said. “We have a great team and hopefully we can go and repeat it.”
Valdes double-checked his scorecard to make sure he signed for a correct score, as he has twice incurred penalties for signing an incorrect scorecard – once as a freshman and once earlier this season – that he says knocked him out of top-10 finishes. “I’ve messed it up twice,” he said.
Valdes now has three collegiate wins, one in each of the past three seasons as he heads toward a possible pro career at season’s end.
“I’ve been playing pretty good recently,” Valdes said. “I always try to have high expectations of going out there and winning every event. I don’t feel like there’s a reason to go to a tournament and go for top 10 or anything. I’m going for the win and I felt good going into it. . . . I’m just really trying to keep it going. There’s a lot of great players out in college golf and hopefully we can keep showing we can do it on the pro circuit too.”
Valdes made up five shots on Evans in the final round. Evans shot a 2-under 70 that included bogeys on the 13th and 14th holes and birdies on 15 and 16, and he narrowly missed birdie putts on 17 and 18 that could have pulled him into a tie for the lead.
Trailing by a shot through 14 holes, Valdes hit a 6-iron from 214 yards to 30 feet to make an eagle on the par-5 15th and hit a 3-wood over the green on his tee shot on the 321-yard 16th hole and chipped to 8 feet for a birdie, then had two-putt pars on the final two holes.
“Out here, coming from the fairway, being able to land it on the green and stop it next to the flags is extremely important,” Valdes said. “Then of course making the putts. With the grain on the greens it was getting a little tough to read at some points, but they rolled super true, you just had to trust it.”
Auburn had two major contributors to the 2024 national title season – JM Butler, who holed the title-clinching putt, and Alex Vogelsong – move onto professional golf and has had others productively step into their roles.
CCU’s performance
Bengtsson is a transfer from Tarleton State in Texas, where last year as a sophomore he recorded a win, three top-10s and six top-20s to be named Second Team All-Western Athletic Conference.
In six events at Coastal, Bengtsson has a pair of top-10 finishes, and out of 18 total rounds he has 11 rounds under par and two at par.
CCU head coach Jacob Wilner places Chanticleer logo stickers onto a player’s golf bag when a golfer shoots an under par round, “and I’m running out of room, so I think that says everything right there,” Wilner said. “His ball-striking is incredible. He drives it incredibly well, his iron play is good, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him holding a trophy up sometime soon. . . . If he starts sprinkling in a few more putts, then he’s going to be pretty hard to beat.”
Also for CCU at The Dunes Club, freshman Drew Sykes tied for 33rd at 2-over 218, senior Trace McDonald tied for 63rd at 9 over, junior Owen Kim tied for 69th at 11 over, and sophomore Jack Lee tied for 82nd at 13 over. Sykes carded CCU’s low round of the week with a 67 Monday but also recorded a 78 that didn’t count for the team total on Tuesday.
CCU had three players compete as individuals, led by junior Max Brud’s tie for 57th at 8 over.
“We have been shooting good low scores and getting production from everybody, we just need to do it a little more often,” Wilner said.
Wilner said the same starting five will tee it up in the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate outside Charleston beginning Sunday before he likely gets back to intrasquad qualifying before the final couple events of the season, which include the Sun Belt Conference Championship from April 21-24 at Annandale Golf Club in Madison, Mississippi.
This spring, CCU has finished third in the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate in California and ninth in the 15-team The Hayt at Sawgrass Country Club in Florida, which has a very strong field.
Coastal is ranked 79th in the Scoreboard national rankings with a 52-29-0 record against opponents in events, and Wilner believes his team needs to move into the mid-60s to earn a spot in an NCAA regional without the benefit of a Sun Belt Conference tournament title.
CCU last reached a regional as a team in 2018.
“I think we still have a chance of getting to regionals,” Wilner said. “It’s been too long since this program has gotten to regionals so that’s obviously the goal. We’re getting support from our athletic department. I like this team, I like who we have coming in so just keep moving forward.”
For the second straight season in 2025-26 CCU will host two events – the Myrtle Beach Golf Trips Intercollegiate at the Grande Dunes Resort Course in the fall and Hackler in the spring. Wilner said the field is set for the fall event and is within a couple teams of being solidified for the Hackler, which he believes is among the best run college tournaments in the country.
“I’ve been doing this for 17 years now and if you do the math I’ve been to 180-plus tournaments, and what The Dunes Club does here with their members, the maintenance staff, the food and beverage and the pro shop and all the ambassadors, I can humbly say this is one of the best, well-run events in college golf,” Wilner said.
Team scores (Pre-tournament Scoreboard national ranking)
1, (1) Auburn -33
2, (39) Louisville -16
3, (19) Duke -14
T4, (40) Wake Forest -2
T4, Baylor -2
6, Kent State +3
7, East Tennessee State +6
8, Coastal Carolina +8
9, (44) N.C. State +10
T10, Nevada +11
T10, Furman +11
12, Missouri +12
13, North Florida +13
14, (45) College of Charleston +18
15, Liberty +20
16, High Point +31
Top 10 individuals
1, Brendan Valdes, Auburn 67-72-65–204 (-12)
2, Ethan Evans, Duke, 69-66-70–205 (-11)
T3, Josiah Gilbert, Auburn, 69-72-67–208 (-8)
T3, Jackson Koivun, Auburn, 71-69-68–208 (-8)
T3, Sebastian Moss, Louisville, 70-70-68–208 (-8)
T3, Max Bengtsson, Coastal Carolina, 69-69-70–208 (-8)
T7, Kristian Bressum, ETSU, 72-71-67–210 (-6)
T7, Scotty Kennon, Wake Forest, 72-67-71–210 (-6)
T9, Bryan Kim, Duke, 71-71-69–211 (-5)
T9, Brett Schell, North Florida, 71-71-69–211 (-5)
T9, Ryan Eshleman, Auburn, 71-71-69–211 (-5)
T9, Cayden Pope, Auburn, 69-69-73–211 (-5)
