BATON ROUGE — With its sights set on qualifying for the 2009 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships, the 16th-ranked LSU men’s golf team will compete as the No. 4 seed in the three-day NCAA regional to be held May 14-16 at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla.
This marks the second-straight season in which the Tigers will tee it up in NCAA regional play as they earned a berth into the NCAA West Regional in 2008.
“We continue to take positive steps in the right direction for our program, and we’re very excited about the opportunity to compete in NCAA regional play once again this season,” said LSU head coach Chuck Winstead. “We’ve achieved some good things this season, but now our guys are set to compete for a spot on the biggest stage in college golf at the NCAA Championships.
“I’m very proud of our guys for how hard they’ve worked this season to reach this point, and it is going to be a great experience to compete in a strong field again this year.”
In recent years, the 30-team field for the NCAA Championships has been determined with the use of three regional tournaments held across the country. However, the NCAA has elected to expand to six regional tournaments this spring with as many as 14 teams competing in each regional.
While LSU will compete in the field at Karsten Creek Golf Club, Lake Merced Golf Club (Daly City, Calif.), University of Texas Golf Club (Austin), The Club at Olde Stone (Bowling Green, Ky.), Red Tail Golf Club (Sorrento, Fla.) and Galloway National Golf Club (Galloway, N.J.) will also serve as host sites for NCAA regional play in 2009.
The top five teams at each regional site will earn the right to tee it up in the 2009 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships at Inverness Golf Club in Toledo, Ohio, from May 27-30.
The top seed in the tournament held at Karsten Creek Golf Club is regional host Oklahoma State, while No. 2 Arkansas, No. 3 TCU and No. 5 Chattanooga round out the top five seeds at the site.
Rounding out the 13-team field making the trip to Stillwater next week in order of seeding are No. 6 Pepperdine, No. 7 Michigan State, No. 8 Baylor, No. 9 Northwestern, No. 10 Tulsa, No. 11 Denver, No. 12 Wichita State and No. 13 Oral Roberts and No. 14.
The Tigers earned the right to compete in NCAA postseason play on the strength of winning three tournament titles this season, including the Gopher Invitational (Sept. 12-14), the John Hayt Invitational (Feb. 22-24) and the Reunion Intercollegiate (April 6-7). They also placed in a tie for fourth at the SEC Men’s Golf Championships for their highest finish in the event since 2002.
For its performance, LSU is ranked No. 16 nationally in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, No. 21 in the Golfstat Top 25 and No. 22 in the Golf World/Nike Golf Coaches Top 25.
“Our guys have certainly been rewarded for all of the hard work that they have put into the season but are in no way satisfied with just getting to this point,” Winstead said. “While we are still a very young team, we are going into regional play with more experience on our side than last year. I know the guys are very excited about the opportunity they’ve been given.”
Galloway National Golf Club ? Galloway, New Jersey
Hosted by Columbia University
Teams (seeded in the following order):
1. Clemson
2. Alabama
3. Illinois (Big Ten Conference)
4. Tennessee
5. Wake Forest
6. Colorado State
7. Kent State (Mid-American Conference)
8. Coastal Carolina (Big South Conference)
9. Virginia
10. Penn State
11. Minnesota
12. VCU (Colonial Athletic Association)
13. Columbia (Ivy Group)
14. Sacred Heart (Northeast Conference)
Individuals:
1. Kevin O’Connell, North Carolina
2. Dan Woltman, Wisconsin
3. Robert Karlsson, Liberty
4. Peter Williamson, Dartmouth
5. Eric Hawerchak, Central Connecticut
University of Texas Golf Club ? Austin, Texas
Hosted by the University of Texas
Teams (seeded in the following order):
1. Stanford
2. Florida
3. Texas Tech
4. Texas
5. UNLV
6. California
7. Lamar (Southland Conference)
8. Michigan
9. Texas-Arlington
10. Virginia Tech
11. Mississippi State
12. New Mexico State (Western Athletic Conference)
13. Jackson State (Southwestern Athletic Conference)
Individuals:
1. Glenn Northcutt, Auburn
2. Ken Looper, New Orleans
3. Cole Moreland, Auburn
4. Adam Cornelson, New Orleans
5. Cedric Scotto, Southeastern Louisiana
6. Jeff Gerlich, Texas State
7. Matthew Carvell, Southeastern Louisiana
8. Corey Roberson, Texas State
9. Fergal Rafferty, Sam Houston
10. Gonzalo Berlin, Jacksonville State
Lake Merced Golf Club ? Daly City, California
Hosted by the University of San Francisco
Teams (seeded in the following order):
1. Southern California
2. Texas A&M
3. Arizona State
4. San Diego State
5. UC Davis (Big West Conference)
6. Oregon
7. New Mexico
8. Colorado
9. UC Irvine
10. Kansas State
11. Oregon State
12. San Diego
13. San Francisco (West Coast Conference)
Individuals:
1. Grant Doverspike, Fresno State
2. Brady Johnson, Brigham Young
3. Nick Delio, Cal State Northridge
4. Scott Smith, Nevada
5. Geoff Gonzalez, Cal Poly
6. Robbie Fillmore, Brigham Young
7. Mark Hubbard, San Jose State
8. Kevin Tucker, Washington State
9. Bhavik Patel, Fresno State
10. Greg Moss, Loyola Marymount
Red Tail Golf Club ? Sorrento, Florida
Hosted by the University of Central Florida and the Central Florida Sports Commission
Teams (seeded in the following order):
1. Georgia (Southeastern Conference)
2. Indiana
3. South Carolina
4. Central Florida (Conference USA)
5. Florida State
6. Arizona
7. Augusta State
8. Kentucky
9. Georgia Southern
10. Georgia State
11. Iowa
12. Charlotte (Atlantic 10 Conference)
13. Campbell (Atlantic Sun Conference)
14. Loyola (Maryland) (Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference)
Individuals:
1. Zach Sucher, UAB
2. M. Etienne Bussierres, South Alabama
3. Josh Brock, North Carolina-Wilmington
4. Bill Jones III, Mercer
5. Kelly McHugh, Florida Atlantic
The Club at Olde Stone ? Bowling Green, Kentucky
Hosted by Western Kentucky University
Teams:
1. Washington (Pacific-10 Conference)
2. Georgia Tech (Atlantic Coast Conference)
3. North Carolina State
4. UCLA
5. Mississippi
6. East Tennessee State
7. Duke
8. Louisville (Big East Conference)
9. Ohio State
10. Vanderbilt
11. Middle Tennessee (Sun Belt Conference)
12. Austin Peay State (Ohio Valley Conference)
13. Cleveland State (Horizon League)
14. Bucknell (The Patriot League)
Individuals:
1. Mike Van Sickle, Marquette
2. Sebastian MacLean, Xavier
3. Trey Bowling, Eastern Kentucky
4. Tyler Duncan, Purdue
5. John Montgomery, Alabama State
Karsten Creek Golf Club ? Stillwater, Oklahoma
Hosted by Oklahoma State University
Teams:
1. Oklahoma State (Big 12 Conference)
2. Arkansas
3. TCU (Mountain West Conference)
4. LSU
5. Chattanooga (Southern Conference)
6. Pepperdine
7. Michigan State
8. Baylor
9. Northwestern
10. Tulsa
11. Denver
12. Wichita State (Missouri Valley Conference)
13. Oral Roberts (The Summit League)
Individuals:
1. Trent Peterson, South Dakota State
2. Peter Malnati, Missouri
3. Tom Whitney, Air Force
4. Kelly Kraft, SMU
5. Eric Onesi, Old Dominion
6. Chris Ross, Eastern Michigan
7. Roger Sloan, UTEP
8. Nate Page, Southern Utah
9. Devin Carrey, Louisiana-Lafayette
10. James Kwon, SMU