Champaign, Ill. - Illinois Men's Golf has been selected as the No. 1 seed to the Sagamore NCAA Regional. Hosted by Ball State University, the regional will be held at Sagamore Club in Noblesville, Ind. The selection marks the eighth consecutive season that Illinois has qualified for the NCAA tournament. Illinois' No. 1 seed marks the highest in program history in the current regional format, which began in 2009.
There will be 13 teams joining the Illini at the Sagamore Club, competing in a 54-hole stroke play tournament May 14-16. The Jack Nicklaus-designed course plays Par 72, 7,173-yards. The top five teams and top individual not on one of those teams will qualify for the NCAA Championship at the Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Fla.
The Illini have an advantage in this upcoming tournament as they participated in the Sagamore Preview this fall. The Illini came home with a team and individual win this fall as junior Thomas Detry took medalist honors, despite the tournament being shortened to 36-holes because of rain.
Illinois will be joined in Indiana by Oregon, UCLA, Alabama, SMU, UNLV, Virginia Tech, Georgia Southern, Colorado, New Mexico State, East Carolina, Marquette, Alabama State and Pennsylvania as well as Individuals from Toledo, Xavier, Oakland University, IUPUI and Ball State.
The Illini nabbed their second consecutive regional title last season, competing at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill. Then a junior, Brian Campbell also earned medalist honors in the tournament, winning by four strokes overall. The win qualified Illinois for its seventh-straight trip to the NCAA Championships.
There are six regional sites hosting the preliminary rounds of the championship from May 14-16 including Gold Mountain Golf Club in Bremerton, Wash., The Course at Yale in New Haven, Conn., The Farms Golf Club in San Diego, Calif., The Rawls Course in Lubbock, Texas, The Sagamore Club in Noblesville, Indiana, and UNC Finley Golf Course in Chapel Hill, N.C.
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