May 9, 2011
SAN DIEGO - The Mountain West Conference champion and seventh-ranked San Diego State men's golf team will head to Tucson for the 2011 NCAA Arizona Regional, slated for May 19-21, at the OMNI Tucson National Golf Course, the NCAA Division I Men's Golf Committee announced Monday afternoon. The Aztecs garnered a No. 2 seed for their 13th consecutive NCAA regional bid and their 16th overall since the field expanded to include regional competition in 1989.
"We're very excited to return to Tucson and the OMNI National Golf Course, where just this past weekend, we won the Mountain West Conference title," said eighth-year SDSU head coach Ryan Donovan. "(The No. 2 seed) speaks very highly of our team's performance throughout the season and competing on a course that we're very familiar with should give our guys an extra boost of confidence."
San Diego State snagged one of the 28 automatic bids to the NCAA tournament as a result of winning its' first-ever MWC crown this past Saturday on the same course in Tucson. Overall, 81 NCAA Division I schools garnered invitations to play in one of the six regional events that will also be played concurrently in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. (USD host), Erie, Colo. (Colorado), Ocala, Fla. (Florida), Radford, Va. (Virginia Tech) and Zionsville, Ind. (Indiana).
The top five teams and the low individual not on an advancing team from each of the six regionals will move on to the national championships, slated for May 31-June 5, at Karsten Creek Golf Course in Stillwater, Okla. The Aztecs have qualified for nationals 25 times in school history, including four times (1999, 2003, 2005, 2008) since the regional format made its debut.
Joining the Aztecs in Arizona next week will be 13 other teams, including five ranked in the top 40, and five individual competitors (75 golfers overall). SDSU has played the par-72, 7,094-yard OMNI Tucson National Golf Course twice previously in NCAA regional action in 1999, when it placed fifth, and more recently in 2006, when it tied for 17th.
SDSU has won six tournaments this season, ranking second nationally to only No. 1 Oklahoma State, which has claimed seven titles. Besides the MWC championships, the Aztecs finished first at the William H. Tucker Intercollegiate, the Arizona Invitational, the USC Invitational, the Fresno State Lexus Golf Classic and the Barona Collegiate Cup. In all, the program has 11 top-five finishes in 12 total events thus far in 2010-11, and has twice been tabbed the Golfweek.com national Team of the Week.
Squads will play 18 holes (54 total) each of the three days with a practice round on Wednesday, May 18. Live hole-by-hole stats will be available on golfstat.com, as well as goaztecs.com for all three rounds.
NCAA Arizona Regional
May 19-21, 2011
OMNI Tucson National Golf Course (Par 72, 7,094 yards)
Tucson, Ariz.
Host: Arizona
Teams seeded in the following order (latest Golfstat/Golfweek-Sagarin Ratings):
1. Texas A&M (8/6)
2. San Diego State^ (7/13)
3. Texas Tech (18/15)
4. California (19/19)
5. Liberty^ (30/27)
6. Washington (31/30)
7. Pepperdine (41/36)
8. Oregon State (45/46)
9. Purdue (55/58)
10. UC Davis^ (52/48)
11. Arizona (61/66)
12. Texas-Arlington^ (67/62)
13. Loyola (Md.)^ (200/200)
14. Army^ (239/248)
Individuals
1. Zac Blair, BYU (59/102)
2. Chris Gilbert, Kansas (NR/277)
3. Jason Sufflebottam, UAB (NR/220)
4. Gustaf Kocken, La.-Monroe (121/199)
5. Will Hogan, Missouri State (NR/311)
^ = earned conference's NCAA automatic bid