WINTER GARDEN, Fla. – Not all sports have a running clock to indicate how much time is left in the game. Golf is one of those sports. Despite this fact, the No. 1 University of North Georgia men's golf team manufactured the sport's equivalent of a buzzer beater in the most outstanding way possible Thursday afternoon. 

In the final round of stroke play in the 2024 NCAA National Championship, to say UNG had its back against the wall would be an understatement. The Nighthawks were pressed against a wall that was full of cracks and ready to cave in on them. 

Yet, here they are, advancing to the medal match play stage of the national tournament after a miraculous run through the final three holes of Orange County National Golf Center.

Junior Hughes Threlkeld was UNG's leader on Thursday. The Savannah, Ga. native had gone bogey free and four-under through 14 holes in an attempt to lead a comeback effort for his team. However, in a gut-wrenching turn of events he double-bogeyed the par-3 15th hole after his tee shot landed just a few feet into a hazard beyond green. It was a gut punch to the spirits of a team that was hoping to avoid its third consecutive early exit at the national tournament. 

Threlkeld's double bogey came around 30 minutes after graduate student Will Chambless recorded back-to-back double bogeys at 12 and 13 as well. 

When Threlkeld stood on the tee at 16, his team trailed the eighth place mark by four shots. Despite a birdie from graduate student Jack Vajda on 16 in the group in front of Threlkeld, a seemingly insurmountable task stood in front of him. 

"I looked at the leaderboard walking up the fairway on 16 and it looked pretty bleak," said Threlkeld.

His tee shot up the dog leg left par-4 landed in the right rough and forced Threlkeld to flirt with a large fairway adjacent tree on his approach shot. 

He laced a swinging hook under the tree that took two friendly bounces before resting just a few inches into the rough behind the 16th green. The pin was a mere five paces off the back edge of the green on a downward slope; a tricky chip shot but a make-able one. At this stage of the game, there were no thoughts of getting up and down for UNG. The Nighthawks needed birdies and they needed them now. 

Threlkeld flipped a short chip onto the green and the ball began tracking towards the hole. Almost as if it was indecisive, the ball slowed on the lip of the cup for just a moment before dropping in, causing a roar among the on-looking Nighthawk faithful. 

"Walking up to the green with Coach [Ryan] Hogan and he looked at me and was like 'how about we chip this in?' and I said, 'I'm in', so I just flopped it out and it trickled in," said Threlkeld, reliving the moment.

Another roar had been heard up ahead from the 17th green just literal seconds before Threlkeld's chip-in birdie. While he was busy saving the day at 16, Vajda was doing the same at 17. 

As a short, dog leg right par-5, 17 was a hole that UNG could and would (out of necessity) be aggressive on. After a perfect tee shot in the fairway, Vajda was on the green in two and faced a 30-foot, uphill putt. As his teammates watched from the back of the green, Vajda drained the improbable putt for his first eagle of the tournament. 

"As soon as I chipped on 16, I looked at Ryan and he told me that Jack had just eagled and once I heard that, I knew we had a chance to kind of sneak in and get hot before the end," said Threlkeld.

Between Vajda's eagle and Threlkeld's birdie, within half a minute, the Nighthawks had gained three strokes on the field. 

Threlkeld raced to the tee box at 17, piped a drive, got near the green in two shots and sank a birdie putt. Behind him, junior Myles Jones had just dropped in an eight-footer to save par at 16. Rather oblivious to the scoring that was happening in front of him, Jones felt the pressure of needing to score well down the stretch to give his team a shot at advancing. 

"I didn't know that Hughes had just birdied too… we were in a better position than I thought," said Jones. "I thought I kind of had to birdie 18 or at least par to make it." 

As Threlkeld went to what could have very well been his final hole of the season, Jones roped a pristine drive to the middle of the fairway on 17. With a roughly 200-yard shot towards an uphill green, head coach Bryson Worley and Jones strategized how to attack the short par-5. Jones' approach landed pin-high, just a few feet to the right of the green. He chipped uphill and past the hole, leaving himself another eight-foot putt coming back.

As Jones eyed the green, deciphering which way the ball would trickle off the face of his putter, freshman reserve teammate Dayton Humphrey summed up the moment best. He looked to his right and uttered to the group, "The door is not open, the door is not closed. It's just a little cracked." 

With a perfect putt, Myles perhaps swung the door open as he dropped in the birdie. 

The last four Nighthawk golfers to play the 17th at Orange County National were Vajda, grad student Will Chambless, Threlkeld and Jones. In that order, their scores were eagle, birdie, birdie, birdie. Five-under-par. On one hole. In minutes. 

Jones left the 17th green as his teammates followed with encouraging words, high fives and fist bumps. A few hundred yards up the course, Threlkeld had stuck his approach shot into the par-4 18th green to about 15 feet from the pin. Tucked into the left side of the putting surface roughly three feet from a swale that would suck in golf balls and spit them out off the left side of the green, the pin placement on 18 was arguably the most challenging of the first 54 holes of the tournament. 

Without a worry, Threlkeld threw a dart into the green and gave himself a look at a third consecutive birdie. With a contingent of 50-plus parents, siblings, administrators and UNG fans watching, Threlkeld pleased the crowd by making the difficult downhill putt. As he plucked the ball from the hole, he raised from his bend with a smile. A fist pump followed. The junior had just shot a five-under 66 on the final day of stroke play to give his team a fighting chance. 

By now, four of the five Nighthawk golfers were in the clubhouse. Word had gotten around about their run and a buzz could be felt between the sea of blue and white taking cover from the Florida sun in some shade off the 18th green. There was hope and life again for UNG, but another birdie from Jones would seal it. 

Revved up from his birdie on 17, Jones clobbered a drive down the 18th fairway, leaving himself a short wedge into the green. 

"That roar carried some momentum over to 18 and I hit it a little farther off the tee and [it] made that hole that much more special," said Jones. 

He stiffed the approach shot, zipping the ball back towards the hole on one bounce as the fans cheered once more. 

By now, Jones was comfortable with eight-foot putts. He had one more in front of him with a birdie on the line to close out his round. Like he had done it a million times before, or at least on the two previous holes, he drained it. 

Nighthawk fans cheered, players bumped fists and chests, parents hugged their sweaty children. A comeback for the ages was complete.

With Jones' birdie on 18, he capped off a run in which UNG went nine-under-par on the final three holes of the golf course. The Nighthawks launched themselves from eight-over to one-under for the tournament and had almost surely secured a spot in the top-8. 

After posting arguably the worst round of the season in which no players went below par the day before, UNG had three golfers do it when it mattered most on Thursday. 

"I had belief in the guys and they had belief in themselves that they could do what they needed to do today," said Worley after the round. "We knew we didn't play well yesterday and they were looking for something to prove to themselves." 

With Jones' final two birdies, he finished one-under on the day and at even-par for the tournament for a T22 spot on the individual leaderboard. Vajda shot a three-under 68, also placing himself even overall and at T22. With Threlkeld's unbelievable run and seven-birdie round, he shot a five-under 66 to get to three-under for the tournament, ending his stroke play event at T12. 

There was still some ambiguity as to whether the Nighthawks' run had been too little or come too late. After all, half the field still remained on the golf course behind them. As the group waited in the clubhouse, watching teams shift up and down the leaderboard around them, it quickly became clear that their season was not over yet. 

When the day was all said and done, UNG ended up in fifth among the 20-team field, marking the program's first ever advancement to the match play stage of the National Championship. 

"I would be remiss if I didn't say it didn't surprise me," said Worley. "We kept waiting for the run to come and it just so happened it was the last three holes… Golf can be exciting too, right?" 

It may not have buzzer beaters, but UNG proved that golf certainly can be exciting. 

The eight-team bracket seeding is decided based upon the eight team's placements in the stroke play portion of the tournament. As the Nighthawks earned the fifth-seed, they will face fourth-seeded and No. 20 Coker tomorrow beginning at 8:20 a.m. The Cobras finished six-under for the tournament and had a run of their own, going five-under on the final day to earn the fourth place finish. 

No. 9 West Florida led the tournament at 14-under and earned the top seed in bracket play. The rest of the top-8 finished as follows: No. 6 Oklahoma Christian - second, No. 16 Central Oklahoma - third, No. 20 Coker - fourth, No. 1 UNG - fifth, No. 5 Colorado Christian - sixth, Wingate - seventh, West Texas A&M - eighth. 

Threlkeld takes on Coker's Killian Ryan to begin UNG's match tomorrow, Friday, May 24 at 8:20 a.m.