Backed by a strong showing in the "alternate format" on Pinehurst No. 4, the UNC alumni squad ran off with the 2008 Carlyle Cup Team Championship on October 27-28 at Pinehurst Resort.
The Tar Heels defeated Duke in the two-day golf competition, winning by the widest margin in the five-year history of the event, with 64 points to 36 for the Blue Devils. UNC has now won the Carlyle Cup Team Championship three times, Duke twice, with the schools winning in alternate years since it began in 2004.
The field of 64 golfers began play under sunny skies on Monday, with the upper bracket playing Pinehurst No. 4 in the Texas Scramble and Aggregate format. With 24 points at stake, Carolina won four of eight matches outright and captured 20 points.
In the lower bracket, which played Pinehurst No. 2 in the Better Ball format, UNC captured 13.5 of the 24 points.
In the Captain’s Pick Shootout following both morning rounds, the Carolina team of captain Johnny Cake, Jonathan Jackson, Mark Kozel and Pete Seagroves defeated the Duke team of Johnny Moore, Stephen Cryan, Tom Craig and Bill Young 2.5 to 1.5.
The Tar Heels held an unprecedented lead of 36-16 after the first day.
With the field switching curses and formats on Tuesday, Carolina turned back an early Duke surge and wound up gaining eight more points in Better Ball play on No. 2 and the alternate format on No. 4.
The result sent the Carlyle Cup Crystal Bowl back to Chapel Hill after Duke had won the 2007 event.
The Carlyle Cup Team Championship is an off-shoot of the intercollegiate Carlyle Cup competition, which is in its ninth year. Carolina has retained the cup since 2005 and entered the winter schedule in a virtual dead heat with Duke.
The Carlyle Cup keeps track of 23 common varsity sports at UNC and Duke, attaching a two-point value to the season series in football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball, and 1 point to the season series in all other sports. Twenty-six total points are at stake. In 2008-09, Carolina needs 13 points to the retain the cup and Duke needs 13.5 to take the sterling silver and enamel trophy back to Durham.
Sponsored and supported by Carlyle & Co. jewelers, which has 35 stores from Philadelphia to Florida, the Carlyle Cup has become the best-known college sports rivalry in America, replicated by other schools across the country.
Captains Johnny Cake and Mike Wilkinson and
the 2008 Carlyle Cup Team Champions!