No. 17 Yellow Jackets playing in an NCAA regional for the 26th straight year
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THE FLATS – Georgia Tech’s No. 17-ranked golf team has received an at-large bid to the NCAA Men’s Division I Golf Regionals and has been made the No. 3 seed at the NCAA Chapel Hill Regional, which will be played May 13-15 at Finley Golf Club in Chapel Hill, N.C.
The NCAA announced on Wednesday afternoon all 81 teams and 45 individuals who will competing for spots in the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championship finals, and the fields for each of the six regional qualifying tournaments, all taking place May 13-15 at different venues. The top five teams from each regional will advance to the finals, which will be conducted May 24-29 at the Omni LaCosta Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. Of the 81 teams, 30 were automatic qualifiers by winning their conference championships, and the other 51 earned at-large bids.
The Yellow Jackets are playing in an NCAA regional for the 26th straight year and for the 33rd time in the 35 years the NCAA has used a regional qualifying format for its championship. Tech has made it through the NCAA regional round each of the last four years (the NCAA Championship and regionals were not conducted in 2020 due to COVID-19), sharing the regional title in 2022 in Columbus, Ohio and winning the 2023 regional in Salem, S.C., by eight strokes.
The Chapel Hill regional in which Tech will compete has the No. 4-ranked team in college golf, North Carolina, as its top seed, and includes nine teams that are listed among the top 50 teams in the Scoreboard NCAA Golf rankings. In order of seed, the field also includes Alabama, East Tennessee State, Northwestern, Baylor, VCU, Loyola Marymount, Long Beach State, Clemson, Michigan State, Ball State and Howard. UNC is the host institution.
The other regional sites and their top seeds are Tennessee at Austin, Texas (The University of Texas Golf Club), Auburn at Baton Rouge, La. (University Club), Arizona State at Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. (The Farms Golf Club). Florida State at Stanford, Calif. (Stanford Golf Course) and Vanderbilt at West Lafayette, Ind. (Birck Boilermaker Golf Course).
TEAM UPDATE – Tech has been ranked as high as No. 10 in the Scoreboard NCAA Rankings, at the start of the spring season, and currently sits No. 17 after finishing third at the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship last month in Charlotte, N.C. Tech also has posted a runner-up finish at the Watersound Invitational, fourth-place finishes at the RE Lamkin Invitational, Linger Longer Invitational and the Calusa Cup, a fifth-place at The Goodwin and sixth-place at the Amer Ari Intercollegiate this spring.
Three of the five starters who teed it up for Tech in last year’s NCAA Championship are back for this edition, including All-American Christo Lamprecht (George, South Africa), fifth-year senior Bartley Forrester (Gainesville, Ga.) and sophomore Hiroshi Tai (Singapore). Only Forrester has played in all 11 stroke-play events for the Yellow Jackets this year. Lamprecht missed the Calusa Cup to play in the Masters, and Tai didn’t compete in the fall opener at the Olympia Fields/Fighting Illini Invitational.
Head coach Bruce Heppler, who has coached Tech to 19 NCAA Championship appearances in his 29 years on The Flats, has started freshmen Kale Fontenot (Lafayatte, La.) and Carson Kim (Yorba Linda, Calif.) in six of the Jackets’ seven spring tournaments.
Lamprecht, a 6-8 junior from South Africa who is a semifinalist for the Ben Hogan Award for the second straight year, won the Olympia Fields event and the Ben Hogan Collegiate Invitational in the fall, has four more top-10 finishes since then, and has not finished below 14th in any event this year. After tying for third place at the ACC Championship, he remains the No. 1 amateur in the World Amateur Golf Rankings, No. 2 in the PGA Tour University list and No. 6 in the Scoreboard collegiate rankings.
Tai (Watersound and RE Lamkin) and Forrester (Olympia Fields and Amer Ari Intercollegiate) have combined for five top-10 finishes this year and rank 1-2 on the team in stroke average. Forrester tied for eighth place at the ACC Championship, while Tai tied for 12th. Freshmen Fontenot and Kim have played in 10 events each; Fontenot’s top finish this spring coming at the Watersound Invitational (T-14) and Kim’s coming at the Linger Longer Invitational (T-22).
Tech’s alternate player for post-season is sophomore Aidan Tran (Fresno, Calif.), who has competed in seven events, including five this spring, with a high finish of a tie for 12th place at both the Linger Longer Invitational and the Calusa Cup.
REGIONAL QUALIFIER FORMAT – Each regional is a 54-hole, stroke-play event with 13 teams and 10 individuals, or 14 teams and five individuals, competing. The top five teams after 54 holes and one individual not on those teams advance from each regional to the NCAA Championship finals in Carlsbad, Calif., which has a field of 30 teams and six individuals.
COACH BRUCE HEPPLER SAYS – “We've reached the point in the season that we all work for, and we're anxious to compete and see how far we can go. We have a great group that works hard and has the ability and talent. But we've got to play well for three days to get a chance to advance.”
