Athens Regional Notes
The 24th-ranked Georgia men's golf team will be the host of the NCAA Athens Regional that will be held today through Saturday here in Athens at the UGA Golf Course (par-71, 7,253 yards). The top five teams and the low individual not on one of those squads will advance to the NCAA Championships May 30-June 3 in Pacific Palisades, Calif.
Georgia will be making its 23rd appearance since the NCAA went to the regionals format for the 1989 season and the Bulldogs have advanced to the NCAAs 16 times in that span. Under Coach Chris Haack, the Bulldogs have been invited to 16 straight regionals, moving on to the NCAAs 13 of the previous 15 seasons. Haack led the Bulldogs to NCAA titles in 1999 and 2005 and runner-up finishes in 2007 and 2011.
And despite a lack of postseason experience on the roster, Haack is confident the Bulldogs can make another push in the NCAAs.
"Why not? We've got as good a chance as anybody," Haack said. "It's a young team, but it's a talented team. The main thing this team needed was experience. When you have (Hudson) Swafford, (Harris) English, (Russell) Henley and (Bryden) Macpherson taking up the bulk of the spots, not a lot of guys had a chance to get in there to get experience. You have to get up on that tee box and feel the butterflies in a tournament to really understand how to handle things and handle them well. We've got some of that experience now. The talent is there, and I believe we can contend."
Junior T.J. Mitchell has appeared in two NCAA Regionals for the Bulldogs, while sophomore transfer Joey Garber helped Michigan win an NCAA Regional last season. Sophomores Brian Carter and Keith Mitchell and freshman Nicholas Reach will be making their NCAA debuts.
And while the Bulldogs acknowledge their youth, they also point to experience the other teams in the Athens Regional don't have -- their knowledge of the UGA Golf Course.
"Playing at home in this golf tournament, our mindset needs to be to go out and have fun," Reach said. "We've all played this course so many times, and we need to use our knowledge of the course to our advantage. There are a lot of nerves associated with this tournament because of what's at stake, but we should be able to settle down because of what we know about this course."
Joining the fourth-seeded Bulldogs in the Athens Regional will be No. 1 seed Alabama, No. 2 seed North Florida, No. 3 seed New Mexico, No. 5 seed Iowa, No. 6 seed East Carolina, No. 7 seed Long Beach State, No. 8 seed Augusta State, No. 9 seed Wake Forest, No. 10 seed Houston, No. 11 seed Texas-Arlington, No. 12 seed UNC-Wilmington and No. 13 seed Loyola (Md.). There also will be 10 individuals representing teams that did not make the NCAA field.
Alabama is fourth in the current rankings, followed by North Florida in 10th, New Mexico in 16th and the Bulldogs in 24th. Alabama (SEC), North Florida (Atlantic Sun), UNC-Wilmington (Colonial) and Loyola (Metro Atlantic) won conference titles earlier this season.
This will be the first tournament in Athens for the Bulldogs since the SEC Championship in 1998. However, the UGA Golf Course is no stranger to tournaments, hosting, among other events, the Nationwide Tour's Stadion Classic, the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic, the Women's NCAA Championships and the PGA Junior Championship.
The Athens Regional will have tee times starting at 8 a.m. today and Friday and starting at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday. The Bulldogs will go off in 10-minute increments today for the first round starting at 8:20 a.m. on number 10. Live scoring and pairings can be found at golfstat.com.
The other NCAA Regionals will take place in Greensboro, N.C.; Bowling Green, Ky.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Norman, Okla.; and Stanford, Calif. Eighty-one teams and 45 individuals are in the field.
There is no charge for admission or parking for the Athens Regional, so please come out and cheer on the Dawgs!
