Tide Men's Golf Team Receives NCAA Postseason Bid
5/9/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
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TUSCALOOSA - The University of Alabama golf team has been selected to participate in the 2005 NCAA Men’s Golf Championships. The field was announced Monday in a 5 p.m. CT teleconference call by the NCAA.
The NCAA holds three regionals May 19-21, each with a field of 27 teams and six individuals drawn from teams that did not advance to postseason play. At each regional, the top 10 teams and top two individuals from teams that do not advance emerge to compete at the June 1-4 finals which will be held at Caves Valley Golf Course in Baltimore, Md. The regional sites include the East, at Golf Club of Tennessee in Nashville, the Central, at Warren Golf Course in South Bend, Ind., and the West, at Stanford Golf Course in Stanford, Calif.
The Crimson Tide, seeded eighth, will compete in Nashville in the East Regional. The teams in the East Regional, in order of seeding include Georgia, Georgia Tech, Florida, Duke, Wake Forest, Georgia Southern, Alabama, Clemson, Georgia State (coached by former Tide golfer Matt Clark), Coastal Carolina, East Tennessee State, Indiana, Central Florida, North Carolina, Louisville, Virginia, Vanderbilt, Charlotte, Penn State, North Carolina-Wilmington, Towson, Rhode Island, Rutgers, Maryland, Army and Boston College.
Alabama’s inclusion in the 2005 NCAA regional marks its ninth regional appearance since 1991 and 14th NCAA tournament appearance overall. The Tide’s best national finish came in 1975 when Jerry Pate led Alabama to a No. 3 national finish.
It’s the second postseason team appearance in three seasons for Tide coach Jay Seawell whose first Alabama team in 2003 advanced.
“I’m very excited. It’s the culmination of a good year,” said Alabama head coach Jay Seawell who coached Augusta State to a fifth place national finish in 2002 before leaving to take the Alabama job. “The guys have worked hard and they really deserve this. I’m excited for them and for the opportunity to go and represent the University of Alabama and compete and try to get to that national championship.”
Alabama is ranked among the Top 25 in all three collegiate golf polls. The Crimson Tide is No. 24 in the May 6 Golf Coaches Association of America Coaches’ Poll, No. 22 in the latest Golfweek collegiate rankings and No. 25 in GolfWorld’s rankings.
The field in the East is arguably the strongest with four of the top eight ranked teams from the GCAA poll, including No. 2 Georgia, No. 5 Georgia Tech, No. 7 Florida and No. 8 Duke.
“It’s a pretty good field when you’ve got the No. 2 and No. 3 ranked teams in the country in Georgia and Georgia Tech and then with Florida and Duke, the ACC champion,” said Seawell. “The East is always the toughest region to get through, and this year it will be the same. But the great part is we’ve got a great seed so that means we should get some good tee times. We deserve what we’ve gotten and now we’ve got to go and take care of some business so we can get in that top 10 and move on to the national championships in Baltimore.”
In a 2004-05 golf season that began September 11, the Tide has played 11 tournaments, including the Southeastern Conference Championships, its last event, which was April 15-17. Alabama’s season included winning the tournament championship at its own Conrad Rehling Alabama Spring Invitational in March. It came in second in two other tournaments, a Top 25-heavy field at the Mercedes Benz Intercollegiate as well as the University of Tennessee’s Tournament of Champions. In fact, Alabama finished among the top five teams in five of its 11 tournaments this season.
The five golfers who will represent Alabama will be determined on Thursday.
“We’re going to pick the team on Thursday night,” said Seawell. “We started practice today for the postseason. We’re having a qualifier through Thursday to find out which five guys we’ll be playing.”
A freshman, Gator Todd, has led the team in the six spring events with his 74.94 stroke average. Todd’s first year of play has included four top 12 individual finishes, including 12th at the 2005 SEC Championships. Four other golfers have competed in all six spring tournaments and include junior transfer Thomas Hagler, true freshman Mark Harrell, senior Clint Provost and redshirt freshman Joseph Sykora.
The Central Regional field includes, in seeded order, Oklahoma State, Augusta State, TCU, Kentucky, Texas, Purdue, Minnesota, Michigan State, Oklahoma, Kent State, Texas Tech, Southern Methodist, Tulsa, Wichita State, Xavier, Texas A&M, Kansas, Arkansas, Baylor, Notre Dame, Lamar, Missouri, Kansas State, IUPUI, Jackson State, Detroit and Loyola of Maryland.
The field in the West Regional, by seed, includes UNLV, New Mexico, Auburn, Arizona State, UCLA, Arizona, Brigham Young, South Carolina, Southern Cal, Washington, LSU, Pepperdine, San Diego State, UC Riverside, St. Mary’s of California, Stanford, Texas Arlington, Colorado State, Cal Poly, Fresno State, Oregon, Denver, South Alabama, Illinois State, Stanford, Princeton, and Central Connecticut State.
