The road to a national championship begins in Aggieland as Texas A&M was selected as the No. 1 seed for the NCAA Bryan Regional as the field for the 2018 Men's DI Golf Championships was revealed on Wednesday. The Bryan Regional will take place May 14-16 at Traditions Golf Club.
The Aggies will be playing in their 15th NCAA Tournament in the past 16 seasons as well as their 44th overall showing in the NCAA field.
“We’re excited to get the post season started on our home course,” Texas A&M head coach J.T. Higgins said. “We got to see Traditions set up for a tournament earlier this year, in some pretty tough weather conditions and the scores reflected that. We had a great field and I think the guys learned a lot because when you play the course on a day-to-day basis you take it for granted and maybe you don’t give it the respect it deserves. I think going into regionals we’ll have a better approach and attitude towards it.”
Texas A&M is the top seed among the 13-team regional field in Aggieland, followed by Baylor, Clemson, Kentucky, UCLA, Ole Miss, South Carolina, San Francisco, Georgia, Mississippi State, UNC Wilmington, Northern Colorado and Bradley.
Additionally, joining the field at Traditions Club will be 10 individuals – Michael Perras (Houston), Mitchell Meissner (Rice), Blake Elliott (McNeese), Zander Lozano (UTSA), Mario Carmona (Rice) Hunter Eichhorn (Marquette), Lewis George (Central Arkansas), Jake Brown (Indiana), Matt Murlick (Marquette) and Michael Sass (College of Charleston).
The tournament will consist of 54 holes of stroke play, with 18 holes each day. The top five teams in the regional advance the NCAA Championship which is scheduled for May 25-30 at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla.
Additionally, the highest-placing individual who is not a member of an advancing team will also earn a trip to Oklahoma.
Led by Nicklaus Award Semifinalists Chandler Phillips, Texas A&M enters the postseason ranked No. 2 in both the most recent Golfstat Rankings and Bushnell Golfweek Coaches Poll, while checking in at No. 3 in the Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings. The Aggies have stood out as one of the country’s top squads, winning a school-record five tournaments while finishing third place or better in nine of 11 tournaments.
Five other sites will host regionals, including the Raleigh Regional (Lonnie Poole Golf Course), Columbus Regional (Scarlet Course/OSU Golf Course, Columbus, Ohio), Kissimmee Regional (Reunion Resort, Kissimmee, Fla.), Norman Regional (Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club, Norman, Okla.), and Stockton Regional (The Reserve at Spanos Park, Stockton, Calif.).
Showing its strength as the nation’s premier athletic conference, all 14 schools from the SEC were selected to the NCAA Men’s Golf Championship Field, including six who will come to the Bryan Regional – A&M, Kentucky, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi State
