North Carolina opens its 2026-27 men’s golf season Monday and Tuesday in the Visit Knoxville Collegiate, heading to Fox Den Country Club in Farragut, Tenn., for a tournament the Tar Heels are playing for the first time.
UNC is part of a 16-team field that includes the host Tennessee, along with Charlotte, Chattanooga, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Liberty, Louisville, Memphis, Mississippi State, Missouri, NC State, South Carolina, Toledo, Vanderbilt and Virginia Tech.
Andrew DiBitetto begins his 10th season as the Johnny and Tricia Thompson head coach and his 16th year with the program. The Tar Heels are coming off a strong 2025-26 campaign in which they won three times and finished tied for ninth at the NCAA Championship after moving through regional play for the seventh time in the last eight NCAA Tournaments.
The lineup Monday features sophomore Carson Bertagnole of Pinehurst; juniors Ethan Paschal of Fayetteville, Grant Roscich of Glen Ellyn, Ill., and Misha Golod of Kyev, Ukraine; and freshman Asher Vargas of Spring, Texas. Junior Sihan Sandhu of Ashburn, Va., is competing as an individual.
One notable absence from the lineup is Niall Sheils Donegan, who earned All-ACC and second-team All-America honors last season. He is in Ireland this week, representing Team Great Britain and Ireland in the Walker Cup for the second straight year.
Bertagnole brings plenty of momentum into the opener. Last season, he picked up All-ACC honors, was a third-team All-America selection, won ACC Freshman of the Year and earned Freshman All-America recognition.
His 70.19 scoring average ranked as the second-best by a UNC freshman and the fifth-best by any player in school history. Over the summer, he finished second in the Elite Amateur Series after third-place showings in the Northeast and Southern Amateurs.
Roscich also arrives with a summer title on his résumé, having won the Sunnehanna Amateur in Johnstown, Pa. Sandhu, meanwhile, made his PGA TOUR debut in July at the 3M Open, an invitation he earned after winning the Augusta Haskins Award Invitational in the spring.
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Carson Bertagnole Gives UNC An Early Chance To Make Noise In Knoxville
Carson Bertagnole has given North Carolina a promising opening at the Visit Knoxville Collegiate, where the Tar Heels spent Friday hanging around the top of the board after a steady start in Tennessee. Bertagnole sits one stroke off the lead after rounds of 66 and 69, and his play helped UNC card a 3-under-par first day while staying within reach of the tournament front-runners.
The Tar Heels posted a 2-under 278 in the morning and followed with a 1-under 279 in the afternoon, leaving them five shots behind co-leaders Chattanooga and Memphis. With the field still early in the event, UNC has positioned itself for a weekend push, and Bertagnoles start gives the team a chance to make some noise if the scoring stays within reach. [Read more 🡒]
UNC Already Faces Early Pressure In A Major 5-Star Recruitment
The early buzz around Demarcus Henrys recruitment is already starting to take shape, and North Carolina is right in the thick of it. The 5-star small forward in the 2027 class is one of the marquee names on the board, and his first official visit is set for Louisville, the opening stop in what is expected to become a busy stretch of trips as his process develops.
For UNC, the challenge is simple enough to see and difficult enough to solve: Henry has a long list of heavy hitters around him, including Ohio State, Kentucky, BYU, UConn, Arkansas and Kansas. Louisville coach Pat Kelsey is also said to be making a major push in the recruitment, which adds another layer to a race that is only just beginning to heat up for the Tar Heels. [Read more 🡒]
UNC Found A Defensive Lineman Fans Never Saw Coming
Xavier Lewis was never the obvious name to watch when North Carolina started sorting through its defensive line options, but he has become one of the more intriguing success stories on the roster. A sophomore who was lightly recruited out of high school, Lewis had just one Power 4 offer from UNC and otherwise heard from smaller programs before initially signing with Austin Peay. He later took a preferred walk-on spot in Chapel Hill after Bill Belichick arrived as head coach, and the move has already started to pay off.
Lewis has since turned that opportunity into a scholarship and real defensive production, the kind of rise that speaks to both persistence and fit. His strong showing against TCU stood out as another reminder that UNC may have found a player who was easy to overlook at first but is becoming harder to ignore now. [Read more 🡒]