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Wake Forest is one of 13 teams competing in the Chapel Hill Regional, which begins this morning. At the end of the three-day regional, the five teams with the lowest (best) scores will advance to the finals, which will be conducted May 29-June 3 at The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida. For those unfamiliar with college golf, five players for each team participate each day of the tournament, but the highest (worst) score of each day is dropped.
The regional will be played on the Finley Course in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which is a Par-72 that is 7,242 yards in length. From the tees the players will be playing, the rating/slope of the course is 75.0/141. For those of you unfamiliar with those ratings, that means a "scratch" or 0-handicap golfer would be expected to shoot 3 over par. Now just imagine the rest of us.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">And now the pairings for those teeing off at the 10th tee on day one! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NCGolfRegional?src=hash">#NCGolfRegional</a> <a href="http://t.co/NffBBnqGuj">pic.twitter.com/NffBBnqGuj</a></p>— Chapel Hill Regional (@NC_GolfRegional) <a href="https://twitter.com/NC_GolfRegional/status/598578181226909696">May 13, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Teams
1. Florida State (1)
2. Stanford (11)
3. UNC Chapel Hill (19)
4. Kennesaw State (24)
5. Wake Forest (25)
6. Clemson (36)
7. Florida (37)
8. Georgia Regents University (49)
9. Charlotte (50)
10. McNeese State (62)
11. Penn State (63)
12. Miami (Ohio) (107)
13. Loyola-Maryland (122)
Florida State is the best team in the country and is essentially a lock to place in the top five. Stanford recently won the Pac-12 Tournament and has the best player in the country in Maverick McNealy (what a name). Therefore, the Cardinal also have an excellent chance of advancing. Outside of that, it should be a very open contest, where there will be at least six teams with legitimate chances of placing in the top five.
Wake Forest's 5
1. Will Zalatoris
2. Davis Womble
3. Paul McBride
4. Woody Woodward
5. Tanner Owen
Three of Wake Forest's five team members will be freshmen, including ACC Freshman of the Year, Will Zalatoris. Zalatoris was named First Team All-ACC and is one of the best 20 players in college golf, regardless of age.
Wake Forest has the 5th best adjusted scoring average in the country, and one of the best "drop" scores in the country. That means they have five fairly consistent players, which can be a huge advantage. If you can only consistently rely on four players, then your margin for error is smaller. This course is very long and will favor driving and ball striking. That should play to Wake's advantage.
College golf is exciting in that you can see a lot of scoring swings in both directions. It's a 54-hole tournament, but it's really a 216/260 hole tournament since there are four counted scores out of five each round. It's almost always accurate to say, "there's a lot of golf left to play."
Please stay tuned to Blogger So Dear, as we will be providing updates in the comments section throughout the tournament.
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