CARLSBAD, Calif. – When are you going to play your best lineup?
Florida State head coach Trey Jones heard that question often during the fall, and his response was always the same: Just wait.
“We had an idea for the big picture,” Jones said, “and it wasn’t to be the best team in November.”
With a jam-packed semester that featured five tournaments, plus the World Amateur Team Championship in October, and came on the heels of the Walker Cup at St. Andrews, Jones saw eight different players crack the lineup. One of his seniors, Frederik Kjettrup, didn’t compete in the first three events, as Florida State finished sixth, seventh and seventh. Another senior, Cole Anderson, missed the East Lake Cup. And breakout senior, Gray Albright, didn’t earn a start until the Stephens Cup, the penultimate tournament of the fall; he’d eventually displace sophomore Jack Bigham, who sat out the fall opener because of the Walker Cup and never could consistently earn a starting nod.
It was at the Stephens Cup where Florida State, a reigning national semifinalist that has climbed to sixth in the national rankings (from No. 11 to start the spring), first flashed its true potential. Kjettrup, Anderson and Albright teamed with stud sophomore Luke Clanton and senior Brett Roberts to win at Trinity Forest. That starting five wouldn’t appear again – mainly because of a serious back injury to Roberts – until the ACC Championship; the Seminoles finished second there and followed that with a runner-up at the NCAA Stanford Regional.
Now, the Seminoles sit fourth through 54 holes of the NCAA Championship following a 2-under 286 that represented the second-best score of the day, behind only Illinois’ 282 that pushed the Illini six shots clear of the field.
“It’s been a slow burn,” Anderson said. “But like I told the guys, I’d rather this than to have problems now.”
Anderson had a roller coaster of the season, posting four top-10s but also four finishes outside the top 50. He was subbed out for the final round of the ACC Championship despite being just 3 over through two rounds and only three shots from his closest teammate.
“I wasn’t happy,” admitted Anderson, who also had his PGA Tour University ranking plummet to No. 28 after that event, three spots out of PGA Tour Americas status (he began the fall at No. 11).
“But I said to coach, I’ll trade having to take a last-place finish at ACCs to get a national championship ring.”
Added Jones: “And he didn’t just say it, he meant it.”
Anderson, who bounced back to go 2-0 at ACC match play and T-10 at regionals, is one of three players, along with Roberts and Kjettrup, who competed as freshmen on a Seminoles squad that was ranked No. 1 in the country before falling in the match-play quarterfinals at the 2021 NCAA Championship. Two years later, they, plus Clanton, made it to the semifinals at nationals, only to get bounced by rival Florida.
Roberts was on the losing end to Gators’ standout Ricky Castillo that day at Grayhawk. He still remembers the sting of watching Castillo and the rest of Florida’s team celebrate on the 10th green after Castillo sank a putt to earn the clinching point in extra holes; the Gators, of course, would go on to win it all, beating Georgia Tech in the final.
“Every time we see Florida now, I feel like we all get a little flashback,” said Roberts, who doesn’t have to look that far down this week’s leaderboard to see Florida in eighth, 10 shots back. “We use it as motivation, and we’re trying to not let it happen again.”
Kjettrup was a little more blunt: “We’ve used it as fuel, and it’s motivation to go out and beat everyone’s a— this year.”
Roberts, however, didn’t know if he’d ever get his chance at NCAA redemption following a crushing diagnosis the week after the East Lake Cup in late October. An MRI revealed that Roberts had two stress fractures in his back. He wouldn’t hit a ball until around Christmas; and then, after his back immediately flared up, Roberts received two injections and shut it down for six more weeks.
“I didn’t think he was going to be back,” Jones said. “He was either done or getting a medical redshirt.”
But Roberts returned in early April and tied for 22nd while playing as an individual at the Lewis Chitengwa Memorial. He’s T-34 along with Anderson – and with nothing worse than a 75 – through 54 holes at Omni La Costa after not cracking the top 25 at conference or regionals.
“I feel like I have a little more of an edge because the time off, I missed it so much,” Roberts said. “Golf is pretty much all I have, and these guys here, it means so much to be here playing with them.”
Jones has implemented what he calls a “brother’s keeper” rule, and he’s done so ever since the days of Brooks Koepka and Daniel Berger. As Jones explains, “We all have to look after each other and pick each other up.” Whether on the golf course or off it.
When Kjettrup opened the NCAA Championship in 12-over 84, capped by a 10-over back nine and quadruple-bogey ‘9’ on the par-5 18th, Clanton, the top-ranked player in the country and a three-time winner this spring, fired a 1-under 71 in tough afternoon conditions to keep the Seminoles above water.
“Golf can get ugly sometimes when you’re out of it,” Kjettrup said. “But I didn’t need to go around apologizing.”
Added Roberts: “I just told him he was a baller, and since then he’s come out and balled.”
The next day, no Florida State player shot worse than 74. And on Sunday, Albright ballooned with a 79, lowlighted by a ‘10’ on the par-5 second. Clanton posted 70 and Kjettrup recorded a second straight 71.
This is the team that Jones has known he’s had all along. His players, too.
“We knew we had a good team this year,” Kjettrup said, “and we knew what was waiting for us at the end of the season.”