Men's Golf to Make 10th-Straight NCAA Championship Appearance
Tuesday, June 1, 2010 | Men's Golf
For the 22nd time in head coach Buddy Alexander's 23 years at the helm for Florida, the men's golf team will be competing in the NCAA Championships. The 2010 edition will be played at par-72, 7,395-yard The Honors Course in Chattanooga, Tenn. on June 2-5.
The Gators have won four national championships, most recently the 2001 NCAA Championships, held at Duke. They also won titles in 1968, 1973 and 1993. UF has been the runner-up on four occasions (1967, 1974, 1990 and 2006. Two Florida golfers have won the individual medal at the NCAA Championship (Bob Murphy in 1966, Nick Gilliam in 2001).
There will be 54 holes of stroke play over the first three days to crown an individual champion and provide a cut to eight teams. Those eight, seeded by their finish in the medal format, will play single-elimination match play over the following three days to determine the national champion.
Alexander will field a very familiar lineup, which has played in the last four tournaments for Florida. Seniors Tyson Alexander (Gainesville, Fla.) and Tim McKenney (Scottsdale, Ariz.) with juniors Bank Vongvanij (Bradenton, Fla.) and Andres Echavarria (Medellin, Colombia) will tee off from the third and fourth position, respectively. Rounding out the lineup is freshman Phillip Choi (Orlando, Fla.)?who will be making his first appearance at the NCAA Championships.
The field was whittled down from 81 schools and 45 individual through six regionals played from coast-to-coast through this past weekend. Five teams and the top individual on a non-advancing team moved on from their regional site.
The regional site winners were Texas and Kent State from the East (New Haven, Conn.), Oklahoma State from the Southeast (Alpharett a, Ga.), Stanford from the Central (South Bend, Ind.), Texas Tech from the South Central (College Station, Texas), Oregon from the Southwest (San Diego, Calif.) and Washington from the West (Bremerton, Wash.). Washington had the largest margin of victory winning by 29 shots shooting 20-under par at the Olympic Course at Gold Mountain.
The six individuals to advance are Marshall Bailey (Virginia Tech), Nick Delio (Cal State Northridge), Rhys Enoch (ETSU), Robbie Fillmore (BYU), Russell Henley (Georgia), Espen Kofstad (Denver). Delio (Southwest), Enoch (East) and Henley (South Central) were the individual medalists at their regional to claim advancement. Bailey, Enoch and Fillmore all had to win a playoff to move on to The Honors.
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