In more ways than one, it's been a year to remember for Davidson's Alex Ross.
The junior golfer made national headlines by shooting 57 in an amateur event last June. In a Davidson polo, he put together six top-5 finishes in seven rounds, including tying for first in one. And he, like so many others across the country, had his season ended in an unforeseen way this month, when stopping the spread of COVID-19 became a more significant endeavor than anything in sports.
It's a year no one could have imagined, but whether he's coming up 18 to end a record round or packing his bags to complete a semester from home, Ross tends to have the right mindset, said Davidson coach Tim Straub.
"He'll turn a 78 into a 73 just because he keeps fighting," said Straub. "He doesn't give up and has a belief that 'I can turn this around.'"
The Wildcats last competed March 6-8, when Ross and the team each finished second at the Pinehurst Intercollegiate. They were scheduled to be at Furman this week, with stops in Kannapolis (Irish Creek) and Cary (MacGregor Downs) in April, leading into the Atlantic 10 Tournament in Orlando (Grand Cypress) April 24-26. Instead, Ross is now back home in Georgia, conducting his spring semester via virtual classrooms and working on his golf game the best way he can.
"I thought the team was coming into form," said Ross. "We were on a really good trajectory. We obviously had big plans for the rest of the year."
Most golf courses near him are closed, so Ross has been working on his craft around his house, and rather than targeting undulating fairways and immaculate greens, he's envisioning those settings while hitting into a small net in his basement.
"I'm sure I'll beat it up a lot," he said.
On the upswing
Straub began recruiting Ross when he played at Atlanta's Pace Academy, where Davidson alumnus Scott Shupe is the coach. To Straub, Ross clearly had the potential to excel in college.
"I was just impressed with how much he improved each year, and it's carried over to Davidson," he said.
As a freshman in 2017-18, Ross had a 74.55 stroke average, earned A-10 Rookie of the Year honors and finished tied for third at the A-10 Championship to also be named the event's Most Outstanding Rookie. Last year, he turned in a top-5 finish (2nd at Dayton) and four top-10s, while earning all-conference honors with a 73.03 average.
This season, he earned a top-150 national ranking and was on track to qualify for the NCAA Regionals. Beginning with a third-place finish in the River Run Invitational in September, Ross was consistently at or near the top of the leaderboard, event after event. He tied for second at the Health Plan Mountaineer Invitational in West Virginia in early October and tied for fourth at the AutoTrader Collegiate Classic in his home state the next week, earning back-to-back A-10 Golfer of the Week honors.
He opened the spring portion of the schedule Feb. 24 by tying the school record with a round of 64 at the Wexford Plantation Intercollegiate in Hilton Head, S.C., and ended the tournament a day later in a first-place tie with teammate Brian Garrett. He was fifth at the Fort Lauderdale Collegiate in early March before his runner-up in Pinehurst.
Straub has seen more consistency in Ross' game, from the tee box to the green and between his ears.
"Even on his off days, he's shooting 72 or 73," said Straub. "His misses are a lot better, and his short game is a lot better."
The only top-5 exception of his year was an injury withdrawal in the Steelwood Collegiate in Alabama in late October, the final event of the fall. After one of his drives hit the cart path and bounced onto a wooden bridge over a water hazard, he decided to play it, rather than take a stroke penalty. He put the ball where he wanted, gave himself a chance at a par and salvaged bogey.
"It was a pretty good shot, just didn't feel good," he said.
The tweak proved to be nothing serious, and if anything, it showed how confident Ross has become in his abilities, that he'd try such a shot at all.
"He feels like he's one of the best players in the field, and it shows," said Straub.
Of course, self-confidence isn't typically a problem when you've hit the number Ross hit last the summer.
On June 6, 2019, Ross grabbed National headlines with a 57 in the third round of the Dogwood Invite.Mr. 57
Wherever he plays these days, Ross gets questions or comments about the round.
It's a magnetism that comes with the territory, and there are certainly worse things to be known for than shooting 15-under par in the second round of a 36-hole day.
Unless they lose a pencil or their sanity, it's unheard-of for golfers to stop tallying shots at 57, but Ross had no more strokes to count on Thursday, June 6, 2019 at the Dogwood Invitational at Druid Hills Golf Club near Atlanta. He tied the lowest competitive round … ever recorded in golf.
It was a feat so remarkable — he was 10-under through 10 holes — that Straub, checking the online leaderboard, assumed there was a statistical error. But the longtime Wildcats coach, part of an NCAA championship team at Wake Forest, was also receiving frantic text messages from other Wildcats, indicating Ross was doing the unthinkable. Could it be real?
Indeed, it was an error-free round on the course and in the stats.
Beginning on hole No. 10, Ross recorded four straight birdies before draining a long putt for eagle on the par-5 14th. After birdies on 15 and 16, he showed his human side with a par on 17 and birdied 18 to close the outward nine with a 27. He birdied six of his final nine holes to close at 57 and finished the day surrounded by his family, other players and a crowd of joyous onlookers he didn't know, who just wanted to see history.
It was the end of an amazing round and the beginning of a new nickname: "Mr. 57."
"I've talked about it and lived with it for a while now," said Ross. "It's a pretty good record to have."
