Two individual golfers and two teams will represent Colorado’s Division I colleges this weekend at two of the NCAA’s three regional tournaments.
Colorado State, led by junior Kevin McAlpine (72.34 stroke average), will be making its 10th straight appearance in the regionals.
CSU will compete in the West Regional at Stanford, joining the University of Denver and Air Force sophomore Tyler Goulding (72.78), who qualified as an individual.
Colorado junior Edward McGlasson (73.23) was the only qualifier for the Buffaloes and will compete as an individual at the Central Regional hosted by Notre Dame.
“We’re ready to go,” CSU coach Jamie Bermel said. “We just want to play well for three days and see if we can’t make it to the nationals. The competition’s tough, the golf course is tough, but you just never know. We played pretty solid at the Mountain West Tournament.”
As for DU, Bermel said, “They’ve got a lot of horsepower, two or three guys who can get it under par. They could make it (to nationals) as easily as anybody.”
McGlasson heads to South Bend, Ind., without coach Mark Simpson, who is recovering from treatment to remove a blood clot from his leg. McGlasson was accompanied by Dave Plati, CU’s longtime associate athletic director for media relations.
“The only coaching I’m going to do is to tell him to use his putter when he gets on the green,” Plati said.
Regional competition starts this morning with 27 teams at each of the three sites. The top 10 teams in each region, plus the top two individuals without teams, advance to the NCAA championship scheduled for June 1-4 at the Caves Valley Golf Course in Owings Mills, Md.
The University of California overcame an eight-stroke deficit in the final round to win last year’s team championship in Hot Springs, Va. UNLV’s Ryan Moore shot a 13-under-par 267 to win the individual championship and will defend his title this year.
