No. 6 UF Men's Golf Opens NCAA Central Regional On Thursday
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 | Men's Golf
The sixth-ranked University of Florida men's golf team seeks its eighth straight NCAA Championships appearance as the Gators tee it up at the NCAA Central Regional, May 15-17, at the Ohio State University Scarlet Course in Columbus, Ohio.
The three-day, 54-hole event gets underway at 8 a.m. ET Thursday. No. 4 seed Florida opens its round at 12:48 p.m. ET with fifth-seeded Tennessee and sixth-seeded Lamar. The remainder of Florida tee times follow in nine-minute intervals. The Gators will be part of the morning session of pairings on Friday. Live tournament scoring is available at www.Golfstat.com and www.Gatorzone.com.
The top 10 teams at the conclusion of Saturday's final round, as well the top two individuals not on an advancing team, move on to the NCAA Championships, May 28-31, at the The Kampen Course at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. Two other regional sites will each send 10 teams to the national tournament.
The par-71, 7,455-yard Scarlet Golf Course on the campus of the Ohio State University will play host to the NCAA Central Regional. Established in 1938, the Scarlet Golf Course has consistently been rated among the best collegiate facilities in the country by Golf Digest. It is a familiar track to collegiate championship golf having hosted 10 men's national championships and several U.S. Open qualifiers.
Florida head coach Buddy Alexander and the players had an opportunity to play in a practice round on Wednesday to get familiar to the surroundings.
“This course will fit us just fine,” Alexander said. “The rough is not as long as I expected it to be. The golf course is in nice shape, and the ball isn't going too far because of the overcast weather. This golf course was lengthened considerably when (Jack) Nicklaus redesigned it, so consequently with the conditions, it will play long and tough.”
The Central Regional will feature arguably the toughest competition of any of the three sites. Eleven teams currently ranked in the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index Top 30 are in the field, including five of the nation's top-10 teams.
I'd like to finish first and that is the goal for this week here,” Alexander said. “Realistically, there are a lot of good teams here. We will just have to play really well the first two days and hope that puts us in a position to win in the final round.”
The top seed in the Central regional and the nation's No. 3 seed overall is Alabama. The Crimson Tide is ranked No. 1 in the Golfweek and Golf World polls and won the Southeastern Conference Championship last month. No. 2 Oklahoma State, No. 3 Georgia Tech and No. 5 Tennessee headline the list of teams who will participate in Columbus with Florida.
The rest of the field making up the regional with their seed numbers include: 6. Lamar, 7. Wake Forest, 8. Indiana, 9. Texas A&M, 10. Louisville, 11. Wichita State, 12. Kent State, 13. Penn State, 14. Arkansas, 15. Michigan, 16. TCU, 17. Texas-Arlington, 18. Illinois, 19. Ohio State, 20. Baylor, 21. Colorado, 22. Eastern Kentucky, 23. Marquette, 24. Eastern Michigan, 25. Cleveland State, 26. Loyola and 27. Sacred Heart.
Florida will be seeking its 25th national championship appearance in the past 26 seasons. The Gators finished in a tie for second at the NCAA East Regional in Alpharetta, Ga., last season. Florida has won three NCAA regional titles with its most recent coming at the 2006 NCAA West Regional.
Junior Billy Horschel (Grant, Fla.) looks to defend a regional title for the third straight season. Horschel shared individual medalist honors at last season's NCAA East Regional (6-under 210), and he captured the 2007 NCAA West Regional as a true freshman (13-under 203). Horschel is the only UF player to win multiple NCAA regionals during a career.
Four of the five players who made up the Gators' fourth-place SEC Championship showing last month are slated to make starts. Senior Tyler Brown (Jacksonville, Fla.), senior Manuel Villegas (Medellin, Colombia), freshman Will Strickler (Charlottesville, Va.) and freshman Tyson Alexander (Gainesville, Fla.) will join Horschel. Strickler was the only player who did not compete at the conference tournament.
Alexander said the team has used the past few weeks since the SEC Championship to fine tune parts of each player's game.
“You work on different things for different people, and depending on what their individual needs are, you take time to improve those,” Alexander said. “There are two things we are trying to accomplish in that sense. No. 1, you are trying to prepare your best to play at that particular moment. Secondly, you are trying to improve your golf swing or your putting stroke to make yourself a better player. We have done a little bit of both over the last month.”
Horschel, Brown and Villegas continue to maintain their individual top-30 rankings according to Golfweek. Horschel ranks as the 19th-best player in the nation and is second in the SEC scoring average at 71.23. Brown is noted as the 23rd-best player, and Villegas is ranked 28th. All three players were named to the All-SEC teams released last month.
Florida has averaged a third-place showing in its last four tournaments combined. The Gators have finished no lower than fourth during that stretch in fields that feature at least 15 teams.
