JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – A loaded field of 20 teams await the 11th-ranked Carson-Newman men's golf team as the Eagles get set to start the 2016 NCAA Division II Men's Golf Championship's South/Southeast Regional beginning on Monday at Mission Inn Golf Club & Resort in Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla.
The Eagles are making their first postseason appearance since 2014 when the program won the South Atlantic Conference Men's Golf Championships and earned the league's automatic bid. This season, C-N was granted an at-large bid to the South/Southeast Regional.
The three-day, 54-hole NCAA Division II South/Southeast Regional will be hosted by the Sunshine State Conference at Mission Inn Golf Club & Resort in Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla. The top five teams and top two student-athletes not affiliated with a team from each region advance to the NCAA Division II Men's Golf Championships, which will be held at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club in Denver, Colo. on May 17-21.
Coach Randy Wylie will send freshman Jake Headrick (Maryville, Tenn.), junior Dalton Reese (Warrenton, Ga.) and seniors Andrew Hall (Knoxville, Tenn.), Jace DeVault (Bluff City, Tenn.) and Nicklaus Kennedy (London, Ontario, Canada). Reese and Kennedy competed for the Orange and Blue the last time the program made the Regional in 2014; that year, the Eagles finished in 20th.
The Eagles are the eight-ranked team when combining the two regions, according to Golfstat.com, and the top-ranked team in the Southeast region coming in as the 11th-best team in Division II.
Outside the top-ranked team Chico State, seventh of the top-eight teams in the nation all hail from the South region. Saint Leo leads the way ranked second, while West Florida, Lynn and Florida Southern round out the top five, respectively. Nova Southeastern is sixth, Barry is seventh and Lee (Tenn.) comes in eighth. West Georgia, North Alabama and Miles round the 10 teams from the region.
Carson-Newman is the top team from the Southeast and followed closely behind by Flagler and South Carolina – Aiken, which are ranked 12th and 13th. The reigning conference champions Lincoln Memorial is the only other SAC representative. Columbus State, Georgia Southwestern, Young Harris and Lander represent the Peach Belt Conference, while Conference Carolinas sends Limestone and North Greenville to Mission Inn.
This season, Carson-Newman has competed in 28 rounds of tournament play and the team averages 291.9 strokes per round. The team's low round of the year was an 11-under 277 at the Saint Leo's Men's Invitational in September. The Eagles have won two events in 2015-16, the State Farm Intercollegiate and the Tennessee River Ramble, with six top-five finishes.
C-N played the Mission Inn Golf Club & Resort earlier this season in the NCAA South/Southeast Regional Preview in February. The Orange and Blue finished seventh in the event after finishing the three-round event at 55-over 919. In the first round of play, C-N turned in its best round with a score of 305.
Surrounded by an abundance of natural Florida beauty, the El Campeón 18-hole championship course was designed by Chicago-based course architect, George O'Neil and built in 1917 - with further enhancements in 1926 by Charles E. Clarke of Troon, Scotland. El Campeón is one of the South's oldest golf courses and blends unusual Central Florida elevation changes of more than 85 feet with features of traditional golf design, including spectacular rolling fairways and undulating greens. El Campeón plays 6,928 yards and is scored as a par-72. In February 2016, El Campeón was ranked as the second-best course in the United State and the top course in Florida according to Golf Channel's GolfAdvisor.
The three-day, 54-hole NCAA Division II Men's Golf Championship's South/Southeast Regional is set to get underway at 7:30 a.m. on Monday morning. The Eagles will tee off on the 10th hole on day one and the first on day two.
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