Bulldogs Set Sights On SEC Championship

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. --- The Georgia men’s golf team will join its fellow league members this weekend in the Southeastern Conference Championship at the Sea Island Golf Club.

The top-seeded Bulldogs will play Friday through Sunday on the par-70, 6,898-yard layout on the Seaside Course. Georgia is ranked No. 3 by Golfweek and No. 4 by GolfStat in this week’s polls.

Georgia will use a lineup of seniors Lee McCoy and Sepp Straka, junior Greyson Sigg, sophomore Zach Healy and freshman Tye Waller.

The Bulldogs will be paired with Auburn and Vanderbilt in the first round on Friday. The players will tee off in 10-minute increments between 7:30-8:10 a.m. Live results and tee times can be found at Golfstat.com and SECSports.com.

“Our expectations are always to win; that’s what we go down there for,” Georgia head coach Chris Haack said. “There are a lot of good teams in our conference, so we know it will be a tough battle, but that’s what’s fun about it. We get to compete at the highest level and that’s what we all signed up for.”

The Bulldogs have won twice this season and own three second-place finishes. Georgia has finished outside the top four in a tournament just once. Sigg twice has earned medalist honors, while McCoy and Healy each have one.

McCoy leads the Bulldogs with a scoring average of 69.78, followed by Straka’s 71.13, Sigg’s 71.19, Healy’s 71.42 and Waller’s 72.33.

“We’re excited about getting into the postseason,” Healy said. “We’ve been a pretty consistent team, especially during the spring. We’re looking forward to the opportunity that we have in front of us this week.”

McCoy currently is rated sixth in the World Amateur Golf Rankings and stands sixth in the GolfStat and eighth in the Golfweek rankings. His win at the Linger Longer Invitational last month was the sixth of his career, one shy of the school record. Earlier this week, he was named one of the 10 semifinalists for the Ben Hogan Award.

The SEC is as strong as ever with three schools ranked in the top 10 and four others in the top 20.

“It’s tough, without a doubt,” Haack said. “Like the other sports in our league, there’s no clear-cut team that will win. There’s no one you can point to and say, ‘That’s the team to beat.’ But that’s one of the nice things about it. If you can win or compete for the SEC, you’ve got a good enough team to go all the way.”

Georgia has been a dominant force at the SECs, winning a league-best 28 conference titles. Under Haack, the Bulldogs have secured seven SEC titles, including five of the tournaments held at Sea Island. Georgia also boasts 15 SEC medalists, including Haack protégés Bryant Odom (2001), Brendon Todd (2004) and Russell Henley (2010).

This marks the 16th year for the SECs to be contested on the Sea Island Golf Club’s Seaside Course. The SEC has conducted its annual championship on St. Simons Island since 2001 (Seaside Course 2001-2007, 2010-2015; Frederica Golf Club 2008-2009).