NCAA Tournament Preview
The NCAA Men’s Golf Tournament is set to get underway on Monday at various golf courses across the country.
While none of the local teams made it to the big dance, there are a few Rhode Islanders sprinkled across the brackets.
Oklahoma
Patrick Welch and the Oklahoma Sooners enter the NCAA Tournament as the number one seed in the Albuquerque Regional.
“We have had a pretty good regular season, but now it is post season time. One bad week, one bad tournament and we are done for, so we just want to stay ready, be prepared and play our best,” said Welch in an interview with Sooner TV.
The matches will be played at the University of New Mexico.
“I know a few of the guys have been there and have had some success there, I have never been there, but if the team has had success then we feel like we all should be,” Welch told Sooners TV.
Welch will be making his second career appearance in the NCAA Regional after finishing tied for 33rd at Pullman in 2019.
The former Classical star made the Haskins Award Watch list for 2021 and came away victorious in the East Lake Cup back in October of 2020.
Since then, Welch has had a few high finishes, but has yet to regain his dominance from East Lake.
Welch is currently ranked as the 35th best player in the country by Golfweek, after climbing as high as fifth earlier this season.
“Just want to finish the season strong. A lot of the seniors came back for this reason, to win a championship, and we want to do it for them,” Welch added.
Oklahoma tees off at 8:30 a.m. eastern time with Arizona State and Texas A&M.
Georgia Tech
Former Moses Brown star Will Dickson and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets enter the NCAA Tournament as a five seed in the Tallahassee Regional.
The Jackets are paired with LSU and Georgia Southern for the first round.
Specifically, Dickson is paired with Mason Williams and Chris Woollam.
After struggling in previous seasons, Dickson’s 2021 season has been a bit of a break out one.
He finished 11th at the Southwestern Invitational, 15th at the Calusa Cup, and most recently reached the U.S. Open’s sectional qualifier.
Dickson tees off at 9 a.m.
Notre Dame
“Here come the Irish.”
With former RI Amateur champions Davis Chatfield and Andrew O’Leary in the fold, Notre Dame enters the NCAA Tournament as a five seed in the Stillwater Regional.
“It’s awesome, a lot of hard work has gone into this the last couple of years. We thought last year was kind of our year until Covid hit. I think we bounced back really well this year. We didn’t even think about making it to Regionals this year, we knew were going to get in. Now to finally be going to Stillwater, it is going to be pretty special,” said Chatfield about making his first NCAA Tournament appearance.
All 36 holes of the Regional will be played on Monday, due to bad weather on Tuesday.
For Chatfield, he finished 12th at the Timuquana Collegiate earlier this year and 11th a the the Stitch Intercollegiate back in April.
Both he and O’Leary had high finishes at the Spartan Collegiate back in March.
Throughout the year, Chatfield has also made noise on the PGA Tour University Rankings, climbing to inside the top 200 of over 500 players.