Graduate student Andrew Riley and junior Niall Sheils Donegan are joining the University of North Carolina men’s golf team, head coach Andrew DiBitetto announced today.
Riley played two seasons (2021-23) at Palm Beach Atlantic and one at North Florida (2023-24). The St. Johns, Fla., native won the Division II NCAA championship and was a first-team All-America in 2023.
Riley has played in 34 collegiate tournaments, averaging 71.95 strokes per round. He shot in the 60s 26 times with a low round of 62 as a sophomore in the first round of the NCAA regional. He averaged 70.92 in 12 tournaments in 2023 and 72.79 in 13 starts in 2024 at North Florida.
He has 13 top-10 finishes, including medalist in the 2023 NCAA Division II South/Southeast Regional and NCAA Championship, which he won shooting 67-70-67 for a 12-under 204. At North Florida, he placed second at the Gator Invitational with rounds of 68-64-66 for a career-best 12-under 198, and earned second-team All-Atlantic Sun Conference honors.
Sheils Donegan played the last two seasons at Northwestern, where last season he was third on the team in scoring average (71.87), helped the Wildcats secure a berth in the NCAA Tallahassee Regional and earned second-team All-Big Ten honors.
He played in 21 tournaments for Northwestern, where he averaged 72.48 over 60 rounds. He had four top-10 finishes, including a tie for sixth at Virginia’s Birdwood Course as a sophomore in the Lewis Chitenga Memorial. He shot a low of 64 in the final round of The Prestige at PGA West, where he tied for seventh with a 6-under 207. He shot 69 and won his match at the Old Course in the St Andrews Links Collegiate.
He shot 69 in the first round of the 2025 Big Ten Championship and 71 in the final round of the NCAA regional. This summer, he tied for fourth in the St Andrews Links Trophy, shooting in the 60s in three of four rounds (with a second-round 66) at the Old Course. He also missed qualifying for the Open Championship by just a single stroke at a Scottish qualifier.
A native of Scotland, Sheils Donegan attended Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, Calif. He was captain for the Great Britain & Ireland team in the 2022 Jacques Leglise Trophy, competed for Scotland in the 2022 Home Internationals and European Boys Championship and won the Hawai’i Amateur in 2022 and 2023.
“We are excited to have Andrew and Niall join our group,” says DiBitetto, who begins his ninthn season as head coach of the Tar Heels. “They make us deeper, better and will bring a tireless work ethic to a team that already works hard. We can’t wait to get started with Andrew and Niall, learn more about each of them and help them in any way we can.”
Riley and Sheils Donegan join a UNC roster that returns senior Keaton Vo, junior Hampton Roberts and sophomores Misha Golod, Ethan Paschal, Grant Roscich and Sihan Sandhu and welcomes freshmen Mack Edwards and Carson Bertagnole.
Related Posts
