Ole Miss men’s golf begins NCAA Regional play in Oklahoma

For the fourth time in as many years, OUR GOLF SONS are headed to the post season. The team has the chance to put aside a bit of a schizophrenic spring season and make it to a Championship that wasn’t even played the year before thanks to COVID. The NCAAs have been the site of much heartbreak and consternation over that time. Missed opportunities, late-round collapses, and even a gosh damn bird have befallen our heroes in the NCAA Regional round to keep the team from a Championship berth.

The task is no lighter this week, as the Rebs head West to Karsten Creek for the Stillwater regional. A top-six finish is what is required for the team to move past this round and on to the Championship at Grayhawk in Scottsdale, Ariz.

This week’s tournament: The Collegiate Invitational (inspired name)

When: May 17th-19th

Where: Stillwater, Okla.

The Course: Karsten Creek

The home of Oklahoma State golf and the host of the 2018 NCAA National Championship. Karsten Creek sports narrow fairways, unforgiving rough, and multi-tiered green complexes that will likely help separate the field fairly early in the proceedings.

The 10th-seed Rebels:

Jackson Suber (Jr., Tampa, Fla.): Was named 1st Team All SEC this past week. 28th-ranked golfer in the country. Two wins and four top-10’s in his last six tournaments.

Sarut Vongchaisit (Jr., Bangkok, Thailand): Best finish was a T22 placement at Old Waverly. Postseason experience will be vital this week.

Veeti Mahonen (Soph, Kirkkonummi, Finland): Best finish was a T8 at the Legends Collegiate in Nashville. No longer inexperienced and will need a big week in Stillwater to get the Rebs to the next round.

Brett Schell (Redshirt Fr., St. Augustine, Fla.): First postseason play for the Redshirt Freshmen.

Jack Gnam (Junior, Ridgeland, Miss.): Arguably the second best golfer in the spring for the Rebels.

The Field: No. 4 Oklahoma State, No. 9 Illinois, No. 15 Auburn, No. 21 SMU, Notre Dame, Alabama, Baylor, Sam Houston State, Arkansas Little Rock, Ole Miss, Northwestern, Charleston, Middle Tennessee State University

The top individuals who will be playing for second: No. 10 Noah Goodwin — SMU, No. 11 Eugen Lopez-Chacarra — Oklahoma State, No. 28 Michael Feagles — Illinois, No. 29 McClure Meissener — SMU, No. 38 Adr Dumont De Chassa — Illinois, No. 40 Jin Bo — Oklahoma State, No. 48 Wilson Furr — Alabama

Where to follow: Golfstat and Ole Miss Golf Twitter are your go to online sources to follow the action. I’ll also be out on the course on Monday, so look for some poorly executed photos on the ol’ Twitter feed during the day.

Weather is dictating that the teams will get 36 holes in on Monday.