UVA Men’s Golf team finishes as national runner-up after historic 2025 season

The UVA Men’s Golf team made program history this season, falling just short of a national championship in a 4-1 match-play loss to Oklahoma State on Wednesday in the NCAA Tournament final.

Apologies for being a day late and dollar short in writing about this.

I admit to knowing nothing about college golf, and the news that the Virginia team was having a championship-level season caught me by surprise.

This year’s group won UVA’s first-ever ACC championship last month, and defeated the last two national champs, Florida (2023) and Auburn (2024) to get to the national title match.

“It is a great group of guys. We are ACC champions and national runner-up, so that’s a heck of a year, but a little bit short of our goal,” UVA coach Bowen Sargent said.

Ben James, a first-team All-American, got the win for UVA’s lone match-play point on the day, defeating Preston Stout 3&2.

James, a junior from Milford, Conn., finished in a tie for 33rd in last month’s Valero Texas Open, his best finish in seven career PGA Tour starts.

In the national championship match, played at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., James never trailed and was 3 UP through his first four holes on the day.

After Stout closed the gap to one on the 11th hole, James won the 12th, then the 15th, before closing out the match on No. 16 by halving the hole.

James went 3-0 in match play at the NCAA Championship.

Josh Duangmanee, a sophomore from Fairfax, had a chance to extend the national championship match against OSU’s Eric Lee on the par-5, 18th hole, but his birdie putt slid past the left edge of the hole.

Lee’s recovery shot setup him up for a short birdie attempt that was conceded by Duangmanee.

Lee’s win cliched Oklahoma State’s 12th national championship.

In three of the four matches lost, Virginia was with one or tied when stepping on to the 15th tee.

OSU’s Ethan Fang won 1UP over Bryan Lee, a junior from Fairfax.

Filip Fahlberg-Johnsson defeated Maxi Puregger, a freshman from Madrid, 3&1.

Gaven Lane defeated Paul Chang, a senior from Tiajin, China, who had won individual medalist honors at the NCAA Reno Regionals, 4&3.

“They made more putts than we did, and that’s usually what it comes down to in match play,” Sargent said. “We played very solid golf from what I saw, but they just happened to play a little bit better. It’s a game of inches at this point, and they came out on top.”