AUGUSTA, Ga. -- When the Augusta State men’s golf team departs Tuesday for the NCAA East Regional and Chattanooga, Tenn., it will do so with plenty of history on its side.
The Jaguars, the No. 17 seed in the 27-team field, were made an at-large selection on Monday, May 5 by the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Committee in Indianapolis, Ind.
The selection marks the 10th NCAA Regional bid in the last 11 years for the men’s golf program, and the 13th time in the last 16 years the Jaguars have been tabbed to participate in the postseason. In nine of their previous 12 trips, the Jags have advanced to the NCAA Championships, the last time being in 2005.
The East Regional, hosted by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, will be contested at Council Fire Golf Club in Chattanooga. The three-day, 54-hole event, begins Thursday, May 15 and runs through Saturday, May 17. A practice round is slated for Wednesday, May 14.
Council Fire Golf Club is a Robert Cupp design that opened in 1992. The 6,961-yard, par-71 layout plays to a course rating of 73.8 and a slope rating of 137.
The Jags will be making their first East Regional appearance since 2004. ASU made three straight trips to the East Regional between 2002 and 2004 before being shipped to the Central Regional in 2005 and to the West Regional last season.
ASU, which will be paired with UC Irvine and SMU in the first two rounds, will be looking to advance to the NCAA Championships for the 10th time in 13 NCAA Regional appearances.
The Jaguar lineup will consist of senior Keith Guest, junior Tarik Can, sophomores Mitch Krywulycz and Jake Amos and freshman Henrik Norlander. Guest, Can and Krywulycz earned valuable regional experience last season when the Jags competed in the West Regional in Tempe, Ariz., with Guest posting the best score among the trio at one-under 215 (73-72-70). As a freshman at Lander last season, Amos led the Bearcats to the Southeast Super Regional championship and a berth in the NCAA Championships.
Guest owns the team lead in stroke average at 71.8 while Norlander has two individual victories this season and paces the squad with five top-20 finishes and 11 rounds of par or better.
Each of the three NCAA Regionals (East, Central and West) consists of 27 teams and six individuals not on the selected teams. The top 10 teams and top two individuals not on advancing teams will move on from each regional to the NCAA Championships.
The National Championships will be conducted May 28-31 on the Kampen Course at the Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex in West Lafayette, Ind., and hosted by Purdue University.
Stanford is the defending national champion, while sophomore Jamie Lovemark of Southern California returns to defend the individual title he claimed as a freshman.
Live scoring of all three NCAA Regionals will be available at www.golfstat.com.