A crowd gathered around the 18th green at Elks Run Golf Club in Batavia, Ohio on April 11 as Zach Beard holed a 25-foot putt to force a playoff against Bellarmine’s Ballard Harris.
The Northern Kentucky University freshman and chemistry major from Cincinnati fired scores of 72, 68, 68 for a total score of 208 to find himself in the playoff.
“I knew I needed to be two under going into my last five holes as I looked at the leaderboard and it happened to come down to the last hole,” Beard said.
Beard was supported not only by his home fans as he began the playoff, but also Coach
David Shearer. Both players made par on the 17th hole and things came down to the 18th hole to decide the winner. Harris was first to hit his approach shot and flew the green long.
“Coach just told me to hit the green and give myself that opportunity,” Beard said.
Beard hit the green, holed his birdie putt on 18 to the sound of roaring fans as he took home individual medalist at The Jewell.
“He reacted just how every Coach would hope they do, and he rose to the occasion,” Shearer said.
The team also finished in first place with a team score of 852.
The Norse have been on a winning streak, with team victories at Bellarmine’s Ernie
Denhman Classic and a victory on home soil at NKU’s The Jewell.
Following his victory at the Jewell, Beard was named Horizon League Men’s Golfer of the
Week. This makes back-to-back Norse golfers being recognized, as graduate student Alex Doss was named Horizon League Men’s Golfer a week prior.
Doss, a fifth-year senior and MBA student, has been another standout player for the
Norse this season.
A native of Campbellsville, Doss leads the team on scoring average this year at 72.91 and has emerged as a leader on the team.
“Evan Stewart reached out to Alex last spring, and they started playing and practicing
together. It was nice to see how it helped Evan’s game start to trend in the right direction,”
Shearer said.
Doss said he sees a lot of similar traits between himself and the young freshman Zach
Beard.
“He’s very similar, he has confidence in his game and plays his own game out there.
It’s just awesome to see him have that confidence and just run with it,” Doss said.
Shearer has led the Norse to their latest successes whilst still being in his
maiden year as head coach.
Shearer, a native of Michigan, joined NKU in 2002 when the program was still in its Division II era. He still leads the Norse lowest season scoring average at 72.46 and has the most career wins with seven.
After a four-year stint on the professional mini-tours, Shearer returned to his alma mater in 2012 as an assistant coach to Head Coach Daryl Landrum for the men and women’s teams.
“In 2017, my wife and I had our second child, so we decided I needed to step back and be at home a little more,” Shearer said.
In 2021, as Landrum retired from coaching, Shearer decided to return to fill the
position of head coach of the men’s team.
Doss led the way for the Norse at the Horizon League championship on April 23 with a total score of 224, seeing him finish in a tie for 14th place. Beard fired the lowest score for the Norse with a 72 on his second day and finished with a total score of 227, alongside his teammates Luke Muller and Evan Stewart in a tie for 21st place.
The team finished with a score of 903 in sixth place, with Purdue Fort Wayne winning the Championship with a score of 870.
