MOBILE, Ala. – In addition to hosting the Mobile Bay Intercollegiate for the fourth year in a row, the University of South Alabama men’s golf team will participate in four events hosted by Southeastern Conference members as part of its 2010-11 schedule released Monday by head coach Ben Hannan.
That includes taking part in three straight tournaments hosted by SEC schools in the fall. The schedule also features events at fellow Sun Belt Conference member Louisiana-Lafayette, Memphis and Southern Mississippi out of Conference USA, and Louisiana Tech and Texas State in the spring.
The Jaguars — who won the Sun Belt Conference championship and finished seventh at the NCAA Southeast Regional last spring — will begin postseason play when they look to defend their league crown April 25-27 at The Shoals’ Fighting Joe Course in Muscle Shoals, Ala. NCAA Regionals will be held May 19-21 at six sites still to be determined, with the NCAA Championships set to take place May 31-June 5 in Stillwater, Okla.
USA, which returns all but one letterwinner from a year ago, fell three strokes shy of advancing to the NCAA Championships in 2010.
“This is an extremely challenging schedule with a ton of opportunities,” Hannan commented. “It will be great preparation for the end of the year — our goal is to defend the conference championship.”
After beginning the campaign at Southern Miss’ Sam Hall Intercollegiate Sept. 13-14, the Jags will participate in the Mason Rudolph Invitational hosted by Vanderbilt Sept. 24-26 — it will be the fourth year in a row that USA will take part in the event.
The fall season will close with three tournaments in three weeks in the middle of October, beginning with the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate hosted by Alabama in Birmingham Oct. 11-12. After a return to Louisiana State’s David Toms Intercollegiate on Oct. 18-19, the Jaguars will look to defend their title at the Memphis Intercollegiate the following week.
This year’s Mobile Bay Intercollegiate, which will kick off the spring season, will take place at the Magnolia Grove Crossings Golf Course Feb. 21-22. Although Mississippi won’t return to defend its title, every other school that finished among the top eight in the team standings last year will be in the field. In addition to the Jaguars, the event will include Akron, Arkansas State, Charlotte, Illinois State, Kentucky, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisville, Memphis, Middle Tennessee, Mississippi State, South Florida, Southern Mississippi, Texas-Arlington and Vanderbilt.
Nine of the 15 teams competing in the tournament ended among the top 100 of last season’s final Golfweek/Sagarin ratings.
“It’s another great field from top to bottom — sitting here today, any one of a number of teams could win the event,” said Hannan. “That’s what makes it fun, normally the leaderboard is tight like it was last year and everything comes down to the final hole.
“We get to start the spring semester at home on a course that we are familiar with, so hopefully it will be a springboard to bigger and better things for us.”
March includes a pair of events to be played in Louisiana, beginning with the 26th Annual Louisiana Classics hosted by ULL March 7-8. Less than a week later, the Jags will participate in Louisiana Tech’s Bulldog Classic.
After a return to the BancorpSouth Intercollegiate — which is hosted by Mississippi — April 4-5, the regular season will conclude April 10-12 at the Jim West Intercollegiate in Victoria, Texas.
“We added a tournament and are starting a week earlier in the fall because we only lost one individual and have brought two new players in. We want to play a lot in the fall,” explained Hannan. “In the spring, I wanted the tournaments to be spaced out a little better on the calendar so that we can prepare for each individual event and fine-tune the lineup as we approach the conference championships.”
For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).
—USA—
Click here for the 2010-11 USA men's golf schedule in pdf format
