Tide Golfers Preparing for This Weekend's SEC Championships
4/12/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
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TUSCALOOSA – The University of Alabama golf team will contend for the 2005 Southeastern Conference championship this weekend when the Crimson Tide travels to Sea Island, Ga., for the April 15-17th championships. The SEC Men’s Golf Championship is being held at Seaside Golf Course.
This year’s league championship brings together a strong field as seven of the league’s 12 teams, including Alabama, are ranked among the Top 25 in this week’s Golf Coaches Association of America/Bridgestone Coaches Poll. Among those is No. 3 Georgia, No. 6 Florida, No. 9 Auburn, No. 15 Tennessee, No. 17 Kentucky, No. 18 South Carolina and T-No. 25 Alabama. Two more teams, LSU and Arkansas, received rankings votes this week. Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Vanderbilt round out the field.
“We’re excited to go into the SEC Championships and compete for the title,” said Alabama Coach Jay Seawell whose team is also ranked No. 25 in the Golfworld rankings and No. 23 by Golfweek. “Our goal is to win the SEC, and we haven’t won it since 1979. These men have worked very hard all year long for this week, and I think we’re playing well enough. We’ll see what happens this weekend.”
Alabama has played with the same five golfers in its lineup all spring. The lineup is led by Augusta State transfer Thomas Hagler’s 74.40 stroke average in his first season at Alabama. The quintet also includes freshman Mark Harrell (75.13), freshman Gator Todd (75.20), senior Clint Provost (75.40) and redshirt freshman Joseph Sykora (76.87).
That group led Alabama to the tournament championship of its own Conrad Rehling Invitational on March 13 and top four finishes this spring in two other tournaments, including the Mercedes Benz Intercollegiate where Alabama finished second among a field that included nine ranked teams and a 4th place finish in its last appearance, the April 2-3 Augusta State Invitational that included seven Top 25 teams among its field.
Those finishes bolster Alabama’s hopes of being a postseason team. The NCAA Regionals are May 19-21st. The East Regional, where Alabama likely would be sent, will be in Nashville. The NCAA finals are May 31-June 3 in Owings Mill, Maryland.
“I think our chances of making the postseason are very good,” said Seawell. “We’re ranked in the Top 25 in all three polls this late in the season, so I think that helps put us in very good shape.”
Alabama finished 11th at the SEC Championships last year, a finish Seawell believes is just what it is: in the past. This is a different Alabama team.
“I think the difference this season has been attitude. It’s been better. We have four new starters, too. We miss Lars (Brovold, now on the European PGA Tour) a great deal from last year, but we’re basically starting four new guys who didn’t experience any of that. That makes a difference. And I think we’ve got more talent. We’re starting to be able to compete with the Georgia’s and the Florida’s of our conference, and if you want to compete in our conference, you’d better be able to beat those teams, that’s for sure.”
