Tar Heels Draw No. 3 Seed in NCAA Men's Golf Regional

The University of North Carolina men's golf team is the No. 3 seed in the NCAA Kissimmee Regional, which will be contested over 54 holes on May 14-16 at the Reunion Resort's Watson Course in Kissimmee, Fla.

The Tar Heels are ranked 17^th in the nation after tying for sixth place in the 2018 ACC Tournament. UNC has two wins and finished in the top five in seven of 11 tournaments this season, the first under the direction of head coach Andrew DiBitetto.

Vanderbilt, ranked sixth by Golfstat, is the top seed in Kissimmee. The rest of the field includes Florida, UNC, South Florida, Kent State, Arizona, Purdue, Colorado State, St. Mary's (Calif.), UCF, Coastal Carolina, Jacksonville State, Georgetown and Central Connecticut State.

"Our guys have worked hard all year and earned this three seed," says DiBitetto. "We look forward to competing in Florida. We'll go down there with the same mindset we've had for each tournament, which is to have fun competing, be resilient, and scratch and claw for every shot to put ourselves in contention to win. Our goal is to bring a regional title back to Chapel Hill.

"This is the best time of the year; we can't wait to compete at Reunion."

The five teams with the best scores after three rounds of play in each of six regionals across the country will advance to the NCAA Championship, which will be played May 25-30 in Stillwater, Okla.

The other five regional sites include Raleigh; Columbus, Ohio; Norman, Okla.; Stockton, Calif.; and College Station, Texas.

The Tar Heels are one of nine ACC teams in the 2018 NCAA Tournament – Georgia Tech, Duke and NC State are playing in Raleigh, Wake Forest and Louisville in Columbus, Florida State and Virginia in Norman and Clemson in College Station.

Carolina is one of four top-20 teams in the Kissimmee Regional. Vanderbilt is No. 5, Florida is No. 8, the Tar Heels are 17^th and South Florida is 20^th.

In 2017, UNC finished fifth at the Stanford Regional and advanced to the NCAA Championship for the first time in 10 years. Four of the players who competed in the 2017 regional are in the lineup this spring – seniors Ben Griffin, Jose Montaño and William Register and sophomore Austin Hitt.

Hitt (67), Griffin (69) and Montaño (69) all shot under par in the final round of the 2017 regional to send the Tar Heels to the NCAA Championship. Griffin and Montaño were 11^th and 17^th, respectively, in the Stanford Regional.

Griffin and Register will be playing in their fourth straight NCAA Regional; Montaño also will be playing in his fourth regional – he played in two at Xavier and will be competing in his second for the Tar Heels. Montaño has shot under par in six of nine career rounds in NCAA regionals.

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