Razorbacks practice at Regionals

ATLANTA – The No. 25 University of Arkansas Razorback men’s golf team completed its practice round at the NCAA Atlanta Regional on Wednesday afternoon in preparation for the 54-hole Regional Championship which begins on Thursday, May 20, and runs through Saturday, May 22.

Seniors David Lingmerth and Dalton Owens, junior Jamie Marshall and freshmen Austin Cook and Josh Eure stepped onto the Crabapple Course of the Capital City Country Club at 8:20 a.m. and played the regional site for roughly five hours. Hitting shots from various locations on each hole and attempting to get a feel for both the course and greens, the Razorbacks felt good about the challenges that lay ahead.

"This is a beautiful course," Arkansas head coach Brad McMakin said. "The fairways are a little too wide for me, but the course is in excellent condition and should make for a competitive championship. I thought that our guys struck the ball well today and if they can chip and putt over the next three days we should be right in the mix."

Arkansas is the No. 5 seed at the regional and needs to be one of the top five teams in the final standings in order to advance to the NCAA Championships where they finished as national runner up a year ago. Other teams competing in the championship include No. 1 Oklahoma St., No. 9 Arizona St., No. 16 and host Georgia Tech, No. 19 Clemson, Wake Forest, Ole Miss, Furman, BYU, Georgia Southern, Coastal Carolina, South Alabama and Towson. The Crabapple Course is a 7,182-yard, par 70 course with difficult greens, but loads of area to hit tee shots. The course also includes several fairway bunkers that could make life difficult should they catch an errant tee shot.

This is the 17th time that the Razorbacks have advanced to NCAA Regional competition since 1989 and during that span have six top five finishes including a regional championships in 1991 when the Hogs shot a school record, for a regional, 859.

The Razorbacks tee off at 8:20 a.m. on the 10th hole with Eure setting the pace with players from Wake Forest and Clemson. Cook follows his freshman counterpart at 8:30 a.m. with Owens, Marshall and Lingmerth rounding out the quintet at 8:40 a.m., 8:50 a.m. and 9 a.m., respectively.