FEATURE: O'Reilly's positive mindset eases pressure entering 2025 NCAA Men's Golf National Championships

Killian O’Reilly knows about pressure.

Nearly three years ago, he was walking the practice round of the PGA’s BMW Championship alongside his golf hero, Rory McIlroy. After several years of delays, O’Reilly — who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as a child — was getting to experience his dream come to fruition after the Make-A-Wish Foundation granted him the chance to meet McIlroy. As they approached the par-3 15th hole together at Wilmington Country Club, O’Reilly was asked if he wanted to take a shot.

No warming up. No practice shots. Just tee it up in front of your favorite PGA golfer with hundreds of fans watching. 

Calmly, O’Reilly parked his tee shot on the green about 12 feet from the hole.

“That was probably the scariest shot of my life,” O’Reilly told McIlroy as they walked to the green moments later.

After the round, McIlroy expressed how impressed he was of O’Reilly’s poise in that moment.

“To play the 15th hole and have Killian walk down, have him hit a shot —and hit a hell of a shot, too,” McIlroy said at the press conference. “A seven iron from 190, baby draw to like 12 feet. You know, he was under a little bit of pressure there with the tee shot and he stepped up and hit a great shot.”

Pressure can make or break even the greatest athletes, especially on a golf course where mental toughness may be more valuable than any physical trait. But O’Reilly’s mature and thoughtful mindset carried him in that moment.

“I mean, you have 200-300 people watching,” he said, recalling that unforgettable day in August 2022. “You have someone that you've studied and kind of idolized for 15 years of your life watching. It's your one chance to impress him. And you know, thankfully, I was able to. But I was comfortable. I was nervous, but I was comfortable as well, because you know, I'm never going to see any of these people again. What's the point, you know? Thankfully, I was able to hit a good shot under the gun and under all the pressure, and I had a smile on my face the whole time. I think something that's helped is I kind of ask myself, ‘What's the worst thing that's going to happen?’ I know I'm not going to whiff the ball. I'm way too good of a player to do that. But, you know, if I miss the green, it's fine. It happens. Thankfully, I was able to hit a really, really good shot to about 12 or 13 feet. And once I did that, then it was good. I didn't have to worry about anything ever again.”

Fast-forward nearly three years later and O’Reilly is continuing that mental approach as he heads to the 2025 NCAA Division III National Championships, which begins Tuesday in Upstate New York. The Averett University men’s golf senior was one of 10 individuals selected to play in the field along with the 43 teams competing.

“Just enjoy it,” O’Reilly said. “It's my last event. I have my family coming. I have a couple of old teammates coming out to watch. I mean, just enjoy it and soak it all in. I've worked really, really hard to get here. I made a list of goals in July of 2024 and one of them was getting it to the national championship. And we're here.”

The trip to the NCAA National Championships will cap a stellar season and collegiate career for O’Reilly. His final season with the Cougars has certainly been his best. Currently ranked No. 28 and ranked as high as No. 25 this season, O’Reilly has six top-10 finishes in nine events with a 72.7 scoring average over 24 rounds. He was even named to the 2025 Division III PING All-Region Team on Sunday night. The 2025 All-Old Dominion Athletic Conference First Team selection couldn’t be more excited to get back to the national championships after competing there as a sophomore when Averett’s team made it in 2022-23. O’Reilly is the first Averett golfer to make the national tournament as an individual since Craig Hosie in 2004.

“I am pumped. On an excitement scale, I'm probably at like a 15 out of 10 right now,” O’Reilly said. “I'm very, very excited for it. Since it was my senior year, that was always in the back of my head. And then with all the good finishes that I had throughout the fall and then through the spring, I knew that it was definitely becoming a possibility — especially with how well I was ranked throughout the season as well. I would have loved for the team to come. We gave it our all until the very end, but I'm still glad that the national championship is my last collegiate event of my life. So that's really, really cool.”

A native of Culpeper, Virginia, O’Reilly has been the undisputed veteran leader on Averett’s roster, which was beneficial for the program following a coaching change right before the fall semester began. When Averett Director of Golf Jeremy Gamba officially arrived in September, he and O’Reilly clicked immediately.

“Obviously, it’s my first year and it takes a little while to earn trust and build relationships, but we hit it off right away, and I felt like I had already known him for many, many years,” said Gamba, who will accompany O’Reilly to the national championship. “In our first interaction and in our first tournament — which was only a couple weeks after I started — he threw a 10-under on the board for a 54-hole event. We spent a lot of time together in that tournament, so I think that kind of sealed the deal right from the get go and kind of set the standard for the rest of the season in just building that trust really early.”

Gamba lauded O’Reilly as a player, person and leader — on and off the golf course. 

“He checks all the boxes,” Gamba said. “He eats, sleeps and breathes golf. He's accountable, he's coachable. He puts in so much effort. He doesn't just show up and go through the motions. He actually puts in the effort. And on top of that, he is constantly seeking more knowledge on his own. He's watching YouTube videos trying to get better and better. As far as what I've seen in growth, it's been pretty consistent.”

For Averett assistant coach Michael Allen, who was a teammate during O’Reilly’s freshman season and has coached him the past two seasons, O’Reilly has taken his game to the next level thanks to that dedication and stepping up as a leader within the program.

“He has always been very talented but he is also the first person at practice and the last person to leave,” Allen said. “That kind of work ethic paired with how much his mental game improved this year is what brought him to the next level. Killian’s mindset entering this year was different than I had ever seen it before. In the past, he always had upperclassman to look up to and lean on if things were difficult. However, this year he was the upperclassman that everyone was looking up to. He seemed to really embrace that role and all the expectations that come with leading the team.”

Getting to that point, however, didn’t come without some obstacles early on. But those lessons learned fostered a sense of resiliency within O’Reilly and put him on the path to success as a golfer and leader the past two seasons.

“My sophomore year, I had a little bit too much fun in college and I was ineligible my spring semester,” O’Reilly said. “But you know, when you're ineligible, you don't have to go to practice and you don't have to participate at all. And I made sure that I was still there with the team, and a lot of guys really respected that. And I that's when I really started to get better at golf in general. … It's been such a learning curve and now I've finally fully balanced college, social life and athletics, and now it's just been smooth running ever since. … I think that just kind of shows how much I've grown these past four years at college, and just not giving up on anything and just continuously to move forward.”

O’Reilly also hopes to capitalize on the lessons learned from his first NCAA National Championship appearance in May 2023. The tournament is different from all other tournaments played throughout the season. Golfers are guaranteed only the first two rounds of the 72-hole event. After 36 holes, the field will be trimmed to the top 18 teams and the top six individuals not on one of the top 18 teams for the final 36 holes. During his first NCAA National Championship trip, O’Reilly shot 14-over through two days and Averett missed the cut as a team by only one stroke. O’Reilly was forced to watch the final two rounds as a spectator. With that experience under his belt, O’Reilly enters this year’s national championship with a better understanding of what is needed to succeed and stick around for the last two rounds.

“I know what to expect now, honestly,” he said. “None of the events in college have cuts, and now I know what it's like to unfortunately miss a cut and what I need to do to make it. And just being able to dip my toes into a national championship, that definitely takes a weight off my shoulders. Like it's not a completely new experience, and going there once before has definitely helped.”

Since Averett’s team season ended at the ODAC Championships in late April, O’Reilly has continued to keep his golf game sharp as he waited for the May 12 selection show to see if he’d make the field this year as an individual. He’s played competitive rounds with freshman teammate Benjamin Afzelius. Last week, O’Reilly even attempted to qualify for the U.S. Open. Although he fell short of the required score, it was a great chance to put himself in a competitive environment.

“It was really good to have some sense of actual competition, not just with Ben, but against other really talented golfers — a lot of professionals from Virginia, a lot of really good amateurs, a lot of Division I players as well throughout the state,” O’Reilly said. “That was really, really helpful.”

All of the courses Averett played at during the season in its various tournaments were courses with Bermuda grass. Cobblestone Creek Country Club and Midvale County Country Club, the two courses near Rochester where this year’s national championships are being played, both are bentgrass courses which offer a different, more fast-rolling surface with less grain. Although bentgrass plays more true, it plays faster. With that in mind, O’Reilly and Gamba made the hour-long drive up to Water’s Edge Country Club in Penhook, Virginia, near Smith Mountain Lake because it’s one of the few bentgrass courses in the region.

O’Reilly and Gamba traveled to New York on Saturday in preparation for practice rounds on Sunday and Monday. Gamba said that also will give the two plenty of time to strategize beyond what they’ve already done leading up to the trip. One thing they haven’t done is mess with O’Reilly’s swing or his process.

“I don't want to do any sort of like swing changes or overhauls, because why fix it if it isn’t broke?” Gamba said. “I think a lot of it just comes down to performance and not letting the bigness of this one kind of creep in, and just treating it like a normal tournament so that way we don't put added pressure. Just play as best you can and see where the chips fall.”

Undoubtedly, there will be pressure at the national championships. But O’Reilly has proven he can handle that spotlight — and not just that one time in front of McIlroy several years ago. Both of O’Reilly’s two collegiate wins — at the Marlin Invitational in March 2022 and at the Camp Lejeune Intercollegiate in April 2024 — were won on playoffs. 

“That's a lot of pressure,” O’Reilly said of his playoff wins. “And just being able to stand up against that pressure, it builds a lot of confidence. It builds a lot of character, and just learning how to deal with that pressure and to have fun with it, too. There's no need to be nervous. Just be excited that you're in that position to begin with and to start with. … No one's going to kill you if you play bad. It's just golf. Just enjoy it. Have fun, enjoy the good shots, enjoy the bad shots. It's going to happen. But just try and have fun and have a smile on your face when you're doing that. That’s definitely really, really helped.”

Allen expects O’Reilly’s mindset to remain the same, even on the biggest stage of NCAA Division III men’s golf.

“He has become very resilient over the years to the point where he can have a lot of fun while performing under pressure,” Allen said. “It’s almost like he derives purpose from the pressure and it fuels his focus and passion for the game. High-pressure moments will normally affect you in weird ways but he has learned to stay composed when the stakes are highest. It’s been extremely fun to watch him learn and put it all together.”

O’Reilly’s journey at the NCAA Division III National Championships will begin with a noon tee time Tuesday at Cobblestone Creek Country Club in Round 1 and a 7:45 a.m. tee time at Midvale Country Club on Day 2.