• Balicki: Who’s going to join me at NCAAs?• East Regional preview.
• Central Regional preview.
• Click here for Golfweek's complete postseason coverage.
When: Thursday-Saturday
Where: Gold Mountain Golf Club, Bremerton, Wash.
Who: Seven of the top 20 teams in the
Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings: USC (3), UCLA (4), Stanford (7), Florida State (10), UNLV (15), Clemson (18) and Arizona State (19).
Scoop: All eyes are on Jamie Lovemark (pictured) and top-seeded USC, which has had a great spring after Australia’s Matthew Giles joined the team midway through the year. The Trojans have won two of their past three events, and three of their past five, including a victory over an impressive field at the U.S. Collegiate and a playoff loss at the Pac-10 Championships.
Short shots: UNLV has missed qualifying for the past two NCAA Championships after being a top-10 seed at the regional. The Rebels are the No. 6 seed in the West, but are coming off a disappointing fourth-place finish April 26 in the Mountain West Conference Championship (behind No. 82 Colorado State, No. 57 TCU and No. 87 BYU).
Frequent fliers: Third-seeded Florida State and ninth-seeded Central Florida will have to make the longest trips of any team in the country. According to Mapquest.com, it’s 2,940 miles from Tallahassee, Fla., to Bremerton, and 3,133 miles from Orlando. It’ll be no short trip for Columbia, either. The Ivy League champs are coming from New York City.
Who can crack the top 10?: Keep an eye on 14th-seeded Oregon State. The Beavers lost in a playoff last year to East Tennessee State and Wake Forest, and can be a dangerous team if they get help from the bottom of the lineup.
Fun fact: In three previous NCAA Regional starts, UCLA senior Kevin Chappell boasts a victory (2006 NCAA East Regional) and two second-place finishes and has a scoring average of 68.7. Chappell is coming off a second-place finish at the Pac-10 Championship, where he lost in a playoff to Arizona’s Creighton Honeck.
Solo act: Boise State senior Troy Merritt has won five events in a row and leads the nation in scoring average (69.26). Merritt has won an NCAA-best seven events this year and will be competing as an individual. Merritt is ranked 13th in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings. He has been under par in 14 of his last 15 rounds, including his last eight.
Also in this star-studded field will be Chappell (No. 3 in the
Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings), Lovemark (4) and teammate Rory Hie (8), Florida State’s Jonas Blixt (7), Stanford’s Sihwan Kim (12), Merritt (13) and North Carolina’s Kevin O’Connell (15).
Field:1. USC
2. UCLA
3. Florida State (ACC champion)
4. Stanford
5. Clemson
6. UNLV
7. North Carolina
8. Texas Tech
9. Central Florida
10. Arizona State (Pac-10 champion)
11. San Diego State
12. Texas
13. LSU
14. Oregon State
15. Pepperdine
16. Oregon
17. California
18. St. Mary’s
19. Kentucky
20. Wisconsin
21. Washington
22. Oklahoma
23. Kansas State
24. San Diego (West Coast Conference champion)
25. Denver (Sun Belt Conference champion)
26. Navy (The Patriot League champion)
27. Columbia (Ivy League champion)
Individuals:1. Troy Merritt, Boise State
2. Brian Locke, Loyola Marymount
3. Tarquin Macmanus, Arizona
4. Jason D’Amore, Loyola Marymount
5. Nathan Stamey, North Carolina-Greensboro
6. Jimmy Lytle, Elon
– Lance Ringler, Sean Martin
Posted: 5/14/2008
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