DAHLONEGA – The No. 1 University of North Georgia men's golf team had a trio of players headline the 2024 Peach Belt Conference All-Conference teams. Graduate student Will Chambless and senior Noah Zediker were named to the PBC All-Conference First Team while junior Ethan Day was awarded with a PBC All-Conference Second Team selection. 

Head coach Bryson Worley was also named the PBC Coach of the Year for the third consecutive season, making him the first coach in the conference's history to do so. In 10 tournament events this season, the Nighthawks finished top-3 or better in nine of them which included four wins.

After leading the Nighthawks to back-to-back top-3 finishes in the league in 2022 and 2023, Worley has his team poised for another strong finish in this year's PBC Championship. The tournament takes place this weekend, hosted by UNG at Forest Hills Golf Club in Augusta, Ga. It begins Friday, Apr. 19 and concludes Sunday, Apr. 21. 

The Nighthawks are searching for the program's first ever men's golf PBC Championship after finishing second in the tournament last year. 

The First Team selections for UNG, Chambless and Zediker, showcased their talents with some of the best individual performances of the year within the conference. 

With a total of 17 rounds completed and 1,211 strokes, Chambless ranked third individually in the PBC in average strokes per round at 71.2. Zediker was not far behind him in sixth with 22 rounds finished at a clip of 71.8 shots per outing. 

Day finished in the top 10 in that same category as well, ending the year in ninth at an average of 71.9 strokes per 18 holes. With 29 outings on the year, Day also had the second most rounds completed of any top-10 scorer in the league. 

With all three All-Conference selections landing in the top-10 in individual scoring, the Nighthawks led the conference in the category with a team average of 284.2 strokes per round. To boot, UNG did so while tying Lander for the most rounds completed this season with 30. It was also the only team to have three individuals finish in the top-10 in scoring. 

Zediker got off to a blazing hot start this year back in the fall. In the team's first event of the season, the Panama City, Fla. native finished the tournament in a tie for second place at eight-under-par, leading UNG to a first place finish as a team. He followed that with a T5 finish in the next tournament before another top-10 in the Nighthawks' record-setting performance at the Cateechee Fall Invitational. 

With Zediker finishing in the top-10 in each of the season's first four events, it was only a matter of time before he broke through and stood atop the leaderboard by himself. That's what happened at the McCoy Wright Currahee Invitational in late October. 

With three rounds under par including a 68 in the opener and a 69 in the finale, Zediker won the event at nine-under-par. 

For Chambless, his season is headlined by an outstanding spring session in which he finished in the top-10 four times out of the five tournaments the Nighthawks competed in. He started off hot with a T2 finish at the LMU Spring Kickoff, ending the event at two-under-par to help UNG finish in first. 

With three rounds in the 60s at the Bartson Spring Bulldog Clash, Chambless locked up another top-5 finish, landing alone in fourth at four-under. Then, in the GCSU Bobcat Invitational, Chambless finished two-under-par to win the event and give the Nighthawks their seventh top-3 finish of the season. 

As he ended the season with a T8 showing at the UWF Argonaut Invitational, Chambless finished an outstanding campaign in which he did not finish worse than 17th in a single event all year. 

With his 71.9 stroke average, Day was right behind his aforementioned teammates all season long. He had a pair of top-10 finishes in the year in the Spring Bulldog Clash and the Cateechee Fall Invitational, headlined by his performance in the latter.

At Cateechee Golf Club in Hartwell, Ga., Day made UNG history over the course of three rounds. He opened the tournament with a six-under-par 65 in the first two rounds. Finishing round three with a 70, Day ended the tournament in second place at 13-under-par, breaking the UNG individual 54-hole scoring record in the process. 

Day, Chambless, Zediker and the rest of the Nighthawk team, led by Worley, will look to hoist their first ever PBC Championship trophy at Forest Hills Golf Club Sunday. As UNG hosts the event, it all begins Friday, Apr. 19. More information on the 2024 PBC Men's and Women's Golf Championship can be found here.