Wake Forest Athletics
Wake Forest Takes Three-seed into NCAA Championship
5/27/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
May 27, 2008
The No. 12 Wake Forest men's golf team, fresh off its win at the NCAA Central Regional, will join a 30-team field Wednesday for the first round of the 111th NCAA Championship from Purdue's Kampen Course.
The Demon Deacons were given the three-seed in the tournament as each regional winner was awarded one of the top three seeds in the championship.
Wake Forest will tee-off Wednesday at 12:12 p.m. with No. 1 Southern California and No. 2 Georgia.
The Deacs will send seniors Webb Simpson and Chris McCartin, junior Dustin Groves, and sophomores Brendan Gielow and Travis Wadkins to compete for the national title.
Simpson leads the Deacs in stroke average at 70.3 per 18 holes.
Wake is looking to win its fourth NCAA Championship in program history and its first since 1986.
Also qualifying for the championship is No.5 Oklahoma State as the four-seed. The Cowboys' Rickie Fowler is the top-ranked individual and on May 18 became the first-ever freshman to win the Ben Hogan Award. No. 14 Clemson is seeded fifth and No. 7 Florida is the No. 6 seed.
The rest of the field includes No. 4 UCLA, No. 27 UAB, No. 2 Alabama, No. 6 Stanford, No. 16 Auburn, No. 8 Charlotte, No. 18 Texas A&M, No. 10 East Tennessee State, No. 24 Indiana, No. 44 Oregon, No. 43 Augusta State, No. 42 UC Irvine, No. 47 Illinois, No. 23 Louisville, No. 38 Mississippi State, Washington, No. 50 St. Mary's (Calif.), No. 19 Arizona State, No. 33 Kent State, No. 40 Penn State, 36 San Diego State, No. 31 Texas, No. 49 Middle Tennessee State and Virginia.
Stanford is the defending national champion.
The individuals in the field are James Sacheck of TCU, Eric Shriver of Pepperdine, Joel Sjoholm from Georgia State, who is ranked No. 4 as an individual, Derek Tolan from Colorado, No. 45 Jurrian Van Der Vaart of Virginia Tech and Dan Woltman of Wisconsin.
The Kampen Course was redesigned by world-renowned golf course architect Pete Dye in 1998, and is an 18-hole links-style championship golf course. The Kampen Course is par-72 that will play 7,431 yards for the NCAA Championship.
Wake finished 14th at Purdue in the 1952 NCAA Championship, which stands as the one and only time the Deacs have played the championship at Purdue or in the state of Indiana. North Texas won the title that year.
The Deacs finished 26th overall in last year's championship in Williamsburg, Va. Wake missed the cut for the final round.
Simpson was the top finisher for Wake at the 2007 championship, posting an even-par 210 over three rounds. Gielow posted the second-best score for the Deacs, a seven-over 217. McCartin and Groves finished 13 over and 16 over, respectively.
Wake Forest head coach Jerry Haas will be coaching in his eighth NCAA Championship in 11 years. Haas' first season of 1997 saw the Deacs post a second-place finish in the NCAA Championship in Lake Forest, Ill. Wake tied for third in 2006 in Sunriver, Ore., but the '97 season remains the best national championship finish by a Haas-coached squad.
Live scoring and course statistics will be available on Golfstat.com.
Weather.com projects a high of 65 degrees with a 10 percent chance of rain in West Lafayette for Wednesday's first round.
-WakeForestSports.com-
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