No. 2 Ranked Tide Golf Team Opens Season in Japan
8/30/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
TUSCALOOSA ?? Armed with a No. 2 ranking in the golf coaches’ poll, the University of Alabama golf team will take its game overseas to Japan where it will battle, among other teams, the U.S.’s No. 1 ranked team when Alabama opens its 2007-08 season at the Topy Cup September 4-6. Representing Alabama will be Michael Thompson, Mark Harrell, Joseph Sykora, Gator Todd and Stewart Whitt.
The Crimson Tide is one of four U.S. teams competing. The defending NCAA champions and the preseason’s No. 1 ranked team Stanford, is one of those four U.S. teams. Duke and Clemson round out the field that will compete against eight teams from Japan. The field was selected last winter based upon preseason projections for the 2007-08 season. All four of the U.S. teams competing are projected to be Top 10 teams. The tournament is sponsored by the Japanese Golf Association and Topy Industries. It will be held in Tanagura, Japan.
The Crimson Tide’s 1992-93 golf team competed in the event, then called the USA/Japan Friendship Tournament, and finished 3rd of 15 teams.
Alabama opens the season with its roster intact from a 2007 team that was ranked No. 1 in college golf from mid-September of 2006 through February of 2007. It raced through the gates, winning its first three tournaments of the fall of 2006 and added a fourth tournament victory in the spring opener. Alabama came in second in three more events, including the Southeastern Conference Championships and the NCAA Central Regional.
“I don’t know if we’ll have the start we had last year,” said head coach Jay Seawell who begins his sixth season at Alabama and has led the Crimson Tide to NCAA postseason play in four of his first five seasons, including last year’s No. 6 NCAA finish. “I don’t expect us to play and do the things that we did at the beginning of last year, but I do believe that we’ll be better at the end of the year because of our focus on that. It’s not that we’re not going to be good now. I think we’re going to play a lot of different lineups early to get some guys a chance and also to give some guys a chance to rest. And by doing that, I don’t believe that we’ll have the start that we had last year. But I think that we’ll have a better finish.”
Four of Alabama’s returning top five are seniors. Alabama’s returning lineup includes 2007 U.S. Amateur finalist Michael Thompson. Thompson led Alabama last year, finishing fourth at both the NCAA Championships and the Southeastern Conference Championships and producing the team’s low stroke average, 71.89 in 12 tournament appearances. The PING All-American spent his summer playing with finesse. He shot 22-under par to finish second in the Players Amateur, won the Greystone Amateur, finished 14th at the Southern Amateur and made the field at the Western Amateur, events that helped him climb into the top 20 in the world amateur rankings.
Also back for his senior season is Mark Harrell. He qualified for the 2007 U.S. Open in June and missed the cut by one stroke, exiting in the same scoring group as the world’s No. 2 ranked professional golfer, Phil Mickelson. Harrell’s summer included winning the stroke play at the U.S. Amateur Pub Links, advancing to match play at the U.S. Amateur and the Western Amateur, and finishing sixth at the Southern Amateur. Senior Joseph Sykora spent five weeks on a mission trip to El Salvador, returned, and promptly won the Alabama Golf Association’s State Match Play Championship, his second title in that event in the last three years. Matthew Swan, a junior, finished T-6th at the Southern Amateur. And Senior Gator Todd’s year included a seventh place finish at the Jones Cup, an elite, invitation only gathering of golf’s top amateurs.
“We’ve had a great summer,” said Seawell. “We’ve had a lot of guys do some good things this summer that I think will transform over into the fall for us having a successful fall. The summer is when players really are asked to improve their games, and our guys have really stepped up this summer and played well and improved. And I look forward to seeing how that works for the team this fall.”
Alabama will play five fall tournaments, including the Topy Cup. It returns from Japan to defend its title at the September 14-16 Carpet Capital Collegiate in Dalton, Ga. It travels to Lafayette, Ind., for the September 22-23 Golf Week/PING Preview. Alabama hosts 12 of college golf’s best teams in Birmingham at its own Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate October 8-9 at Old Overton Club then rounds out the fall at Lake Oconee, Ga., for the October 28-30 Callaway Golf Match Play. There are five regular season tournaments in the spring, beginning with the John Hayt Intercollegiate, which Alabama won last year, in Jacksonville, Fla., on February 17-19. It returns to the Puerto Rico Classic February 29-March 2 as well as the March 14-16 E-Z-Go Schenkel Invitational in Statesboro, Ga., and the March 24-26 U.S. Collegiate Championship in Atlanta. Alabama closes out the regular season in Austin, Texas at the April 7-8 Morris Williams Intercollegiate.
“It’s a challenging schedule,” said Seawell. “We’re really looking forward to returning to the Farm for the Carpet Capital because it’s one of the biggest tournaments in the country and because we’re the returning champions and they have a really nice champions dinner with that event where they’ll present us, as the defending champions, with a specially made rug with our logo and the tournament’s logo because it’s sponsored by the carpet industry. The field there is very good, so it’s a big one for us. And then of course the Pate of which we host. We’re the defending champions there also. The field is second to no one. Those two are the ones that stand out as tournaments that we circle on our calendar as being very, very important. All of them are important, but those two stand out right now.”
