Ducks Earn No. 6 Seed to Men?s Golf Regional
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- The Oregon men’s golf team received the No. 6 seed to the Lake Merced Regional, which will be played May 14-16 at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City, Calif., the NCAA announced Monday.
The top five teams from the regional will advance to the NCAA Championships May 27-30 at Toledo, Ohio.
No. 3 USC received the No. 1 seed at Lake Merced, followed by No. 13 Texas A&M, No. 15 Arizona State, No. 22 San Diego State and UC Davis. Oregon led the second five, with New Mexico, Colorado, UC Irvine, Kansas State, Oregon State, San Diego and host San Francisco rounding out the 13-team field.
The Ducks are coming off an impressive second-place finish at last week’s Pac-10 Championships, which was the University’s best showing in 12 years. At last year’s regional in Seattle, Wash., the Ducks advanced to the NCAA Championships with an all-time best second-place finish, as Joey Benedetti became the school’s first individual regional winner.
The NCAA changed the regional format this season, expanding the number from three to six regional tournaments held around the country, but kept the overall number of teams in the postseason relatively unchanged. The new format means fewer teams from the same conference will go head to head at regional tournaments.
The Pac-10 produced half of the No. 1 seeds, with Washington receiving the No. 1 seed at Bowling Green, Ky., and Stanford earning the top spot at the Austin, Texas, regional in addition to USC. The other No. 1 seeds were Clemson (Galloway, N.J.), Georgia (Sorrento, Fla.) and Oklahoma State (Stillwater, Okla.).
The Pac-10 received nine bids in all with UCLA getting the fourth seed in Bowling Green, California receiving the No. 6 seed in Austin and Arizona getting No. 6 seed in Sorrento, in addition to the four Pac-10 teams at Lake Merced and Stanford and Washington.
Lake Merced plays to a length of 6,863 yards with a par of 72. It was built in 1922 by Willie Lock and then redesigned in 1929 by fabled golf architect Alister MacKenzie. When nearby Interstate 280 was constructed in the early 1960’s, the club retained Robert Muir Graves to reroute the course as necessary to create the basis of today’s championship layout. Then the golf course underwent a major renovation in 1996 under the direction of Rees Jones.
- www.goducks.com -
