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University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC Plays Host To NCAA Men's Golf Regional
May 4, 2015 | Men's Golf
“We are coming off of a disappointing fifth-place finish at ACCs, but hopefully our fine play in the final two rounds at Old North State will give us some momentum going into NCAAs,” says Tar Heel head coach Andrew Sapp. “There are so many teams who can win the NCAA Championship this year, but you have to make it through NCAA Regionals first. I keep telling our guys that not many teams, if any, have five starters who have all won college tournaments in their career, and that is what we have on our team. With final exams ending tomorrow, we will have a whole week to be entirely focused on playing at Finley for Regionals.”
There are six regionals across the country. Three of the regionals have 14 teams and five individuals while the other three regionals will host 13 teams and 10 individuals. The top five teams and top individual (not on those five teams) at each regional will advance on to the NCAA Championships to be played May 29-June 3 at The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Fla. In addition to UNC Finley Golf Course, this year's other NCAA Regional sites are The Sagamore Club in Noblesville, Ind.; The Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.; The Rawls Course in Lubbock, Tex.; Gold Mountain Golf Club in Bremerton, Wash.; and The Course at Yale in New Haven, Conn.
“It is an honor to host one of the NCAA Regionals at UNC Finley,” continued Sapp. “We are so proud of our golf course, and so much work has gone into hosting this Championship. Our Operations staff, our Golf Professional staff, and definitely our Golf Course Superintendent staff have all put in so much work to make this event great and I am so appreciative of their efforts. The field is really strong with the #1 team in the country, FSU, coming to our site, and the #1 ranked player, Maverick McNealy and his Stanford Cardinal coming to Chapel Hill. Plus, there are a lot of teams from the Southeast joining us. It will be a great event and we are looking forward to it. We hope to see a lot of UNC Fans coming out to line the fairways to watch.”
The NCAA Regional in Chapel Hill includes five of top 25 teams in Golfstat's National Rankings and six of the top 25 individuals. Top-ranked Florida State heads the teams in Chapel Hill along with #11 Stanford, #19 North Carolina, #24 Kennesaw State and #25 Wake Forest. Stanford's Maverick McNealy, the #1 player in the country, will be in Chapel Hill to showcase his talents. The other top-ranked players include #14 Zach Seabolt of Winthrop, #16 Jack Maguire of Florida State, #18 Will Zalatoris, of Wake Forest, #19 Hank Lebioda of Florida State and #25 Ben Griffin of North Carolina.
A record 10 Atlantic Coast Conference teams received a bid to the NCAA Regionals, the most of any conference in the country. Virginia Tech (7 seed) will be playing in Noblesville, Ind.; Florida State (1 seed), North Carolina (3 seed), Wake Forest (5 seed) and Clemson (6 seed) will be playing in Chapel Hill, Georgia Tech (2 seed) and Virginia (5 seed) will be playing in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.; Louisville (7 seed) and Duke (8 seed) will be playing in Lubbock, Tex.; and NC State (8 seed) will be playing in New Haven, Conn.
Carolina has won three tournaments this year and has been the runner-up in three additional events. The Tar Heels captured the championship at the Tar Heel Intercollegiate, the Bridgestone Golf Collegiate and the Sea Best Invitational so far this year. They were the runner-up at the Rod Myers Invitational, the Lamkin San Diego Classic and the Liberty Spring Invitational. Carolina carded two additional top-5 finishes, tying for third at the Linger Longer Invitational and placing fifth at the ACC Championships. In their other events, the Tar Heels finished seventh at the Primland Collegiate Invitational and placed ninth at the Carpet Capital Collegiate and the Puerto Rico Classic.
Carolina has been led this year by the freshman duo of Ben Griffin, from Chapel Hill, and William Register, from Burlington, N.C. Both players have each won two tournaments. Griffin, who has a team-leading 70.75 scoring average, captured the championship at the Tar Heel Intercollegiate, the second event of his collegiate career, and the Bridgestone Golf Collegiate. Register, who boasts a 71.66 scoring average, came away victorious at the Primland Collegiate Invitational and tied for first at the Liberty Spring Invitational. Register's win at Primland came in record-setting fashion as his 17-under-par 199 total set a new school record for lowest 54-hole tournament overall score and in relation to par. That performance was the 10th in league history under 200 in a 54-hole tournament, and he was just the eighth ACC student-athlete to break that mark.
This marks Carolina's 23rd trip to the NCAA Regionals. Carolina has received a bid to the NCAA Regionals in all but four years (2009, 2011, 2012, 2014) since the regional format was instituted in 1989 and has advanced to the NCAAs 17 times. This marks Carolina's 46th year of postseason NCAA play.
The complete list of teams participating at the Chapel Hill Regional are as follows (by seed): Florida State, Stanford, North Carolina, Kennesaw State, Wake Forest, Clemson, Florida, Georgia Regents, Charlotte, McNeese State, Penn State, Miami (Ohio), and Loyola (Maryland). The 10 individuals participating in Chapel Hill are: Zach Seabolt of Winthrop, JT Poston of Western Carolina, Trey Rule of Mercer, Ben Wheeler of Coastal Carolina, Ashtonn Van Horne of Belmont, Andrew Dorn of Coastal Carolina, Ryan Cornfield of South Carolina Upstate, Dawson Armstrong of Lipscomb, Isaiah Logue of Liberty and Brendon Caballero of Tennessee-Martin.
Players Mentioned
