The 11th-ranked Georgia men’s golf team will begin its quest for another national championship this week in the Tallahassee (Fla.) Regional.
The Bulldogs are the No. 2 seed for the Regional, which will be held at the Seminole Legacy Golf Club. Joining Georgia and host/top seed Florida State will be No. 3 Liberty, No. 4 LSU, No. 5 Georgia Tech, No. 6 Georgia Southern, No. 7 TCU, No. 8 Indiana, No. 9 Kansas, No. 10 Southern Cal, No. 11 Ohio State, No. 12 Davidson, No. 13 Florida A&M, and No. 14 Long Island University.
The other NCAA Regionals are being held at The Sagamore Club in Noblesville, Ind.; Championship Course at UNM in Albuquerque, N.M.; Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla.; Golf Club of Tennessee in Kingston Springs, Tenn.; and Tumble Creek Golf & Country Club in Cle Elum, Wash.
The top five finishers from each Regional will advance to the NCAA Championships May 28-June 2 at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz.
“We have a big task at hand at the Regionals, but we’ve been playing well the last few months and we’re excited about this opportunity,” sophomore Connor Creasy said. “It seems like we play better and better each and every day, so we just want to ride that momentum. We’re playing well at the right time.”
Georgia will use a lineup of fifth-year player Spencer Ralston, senior Davis Thompson, juniors Trent Phillips and Eli Scott, and Creasy for the Regional. That quintet won the stroke play portion of the SEC Championship by eight strokes last month. Thompson was named SEC Player of the Year and was joined on the First Team by Phillips on Friday.
Georgia will be paired with Florida State and Liberty in the first round today, with tee times set between 8:30 and 9:14 a.m.
“We have to go to Tallahassee and play our game,” Georgia head coach Chris Haack said. “We have been consistent and solid, so if we keep doing that, we should be OK. The Regionals can be nerve racking, but our attitude is that this is another opportunity to win a tournament.”
The Bulldogs were invited to a Regional for the 25th straight year and for the 31st time in 32 seasons (excluding 2020 as the postseason was canceled due to the pandemic) since the format was introduced in 1988-89. The Bulldogs have advanced from the Regional to the NCAAs 22 times. The Bulldogs will be appearing in their 24th Regional under Haack and they have moved onto the NCAAs 19 times, including five wins in a Regional. Haack led the Bulldogs to the 1999 and 2005 national titles, to runner-up finishes in 2007 and 2011, and to the national semifinals in 2015.