The University of Colorado men’s golf team will be going south again for its NCAA regional trip.
The Buffs, winner of two major team titles this season (including its own Mark Simpson Colorado Invitational), were seeded 11th out of 13 teams for the Tuscaloosa, Ala., Regional that will be contested May 16-18 at the Ol’ Colony Golf Complex. It marked the third time in the last four years that Colorado has been sent to a regional in the southern U.S. (Fayetteville, Ark., in 2013 and Auburn, Ala., in 2014).
In all, the fields for six 54-hole regionals were revealed Thursday morning on Golf Channel.
It’s the fourth consecutive season that CU has earned a regional berth — and the 20th time since 1989. But the Buffs, with coach Roy Edwards at the helm, are looking to qualify a team for the NCAA Championship Finals for the first time since 2002.
The top five team finishers, and the low individual not on those teams, from each regional will advance to the NCAA finals, set for May 27-June 1 at Eugene Country Club in Oregon.
Colorado, the only Colorado-based school to earn a team (or individual) berth in the men’s NCAA regionals in 2016, is ranked 66th nationally by Golfstat and 67th by Golfweek, meaning CU landed one of the final NCAA regional at-large berths. Individually, the Buffs are led by junior Jeremy Paul, who has two individual wins to his credit this season, one in a large-scale tournament. The German has seven top-10s all told this season — including a seventh at the recent Pac-12 Championships — and owns a 70.46 stroke average. In the national individual college rankings, Paul is 41st according to Golfstat, while Golfweek has him 64th. This week, he was named a second-team All-Pac-12 selection. (Paul is pictured above with Edwards.)
Georgia is the top-seeded team in the Southeastern Conference-heavy Tuscaloosa Regional, having just won the SEC title. Host Alabama is seeded fourth. Kansas, coached by former Colorado State University coach Jamie Bermel, is the seventh seed in Tuscaloosa after a four-win season.
Meanwhile, Coloradan Wyndham Clark’s Oklahoma State team was seeded first in the Stillwater, Okla., Regional that the Cowboys will be hosting at Karsten Creek. Clark, who won the 2010 CGA Stroke Play title when he was 16, has two top-six individual finishes — and six top-12s — to his credit this season. Also competing in the Stillwater Regional will be Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Mark Crabtree’s University of Louisville squad. The Cardinals are seeded 10th in the region.
For the complete fields for the men’s NCAA Regionals, CLICK HERE.
