Penn State men headed for Blackwolf Run for NCAA regional

   Despite a disappointing ninth-place finish at the Big Ten Championship, Greg Nye’s Penn State team, No. 33 in the latest Golfstat rankings, received a bid to the NCAA regionals for the second straight year as the field was revealed Thursday morning on The Golf Channel.

   Penn State is seeded sixth in the regional being played at Blackwolf Run’s Meadow Valleys Course in Kohler, Wis. Marquette is the host.

   The Nittany Lions will see a familiar foe at Blackwolf Run as Big Ten champion Illinois, ranked fourth, is the top seed at the regional. Interestingly, the 2 and 3 seeds are coming to Wisconsin from the Sunshine State as Florida State is seeded second and Florida is the three seed.

   Seton Hall’s Lloyd Jefferson Go, a junior from the Philippines who won the Big East individual title this week, earned one of the individual berths in the Blackwolf Run regional.

   Former Haverford School standout Cole Berman and Georgetown, which claimed the Big East team championship in impressive fashion this week, is headed for the Vanderbilt Legends Club in Franklin, Tenn. The Hoyas are seeded 13^th.

   Big 12 champion Texas is the top seed and host Vanderbilt is a formidable No. 2 seed. Defending champion LSU is seeded third in the regional.

   Six regional tournaments will be staged May 16 to 18 with the top five teams and top individual finisher not part of one of the advancing teams moving to the NCAA Finals. The University of Oregon is hosting the NCAA Finals May 27 to June 1 at Eugene Country Club.

   There’s 81 teams teeing it up at the six regional sites, so there’s a lot going on here. The top six teams in the Golfstat rankings are the top seeds, in much the same fashion as the seedings for the four women’s NCAA regionals. I’ll give you some observations on the other four regionals I haven’t mentioned yet.

   Southeast Conference champion Georgia, ranked fifth, is the top seed at the Ol’ Colony Golf Complex in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Georgia might think it’s right back at the SEC Championship as the next three seeds at Ol’ Colony are Auburn, South Carolina and regional host Alabama, seeded 2, 3   and 4, respectively.

   And after fifth-seeded Mountain West champion UNLV comes sixth-seeded Kentucky, another SEC entrant.

   Pac-12 champion Stanford, the No. 1 team in the latest Golfstat rankings, is the top seed at Gallery Golf Club in Marana, Ariz. Coming off a powerful performance in winning the Pac-12 Championship, Stanford will face conference rivals California, seeded third, and Oregon, seeded fourth, at Gallery. The ACC is well-represented in the desert as well with Wake Forest seeded second and North Carolina seeded fifth.

   Southern California, ranked No. 3, but coming off a disappointing fifth-place finish at the Pac-12 Championship, is the top seed at the Championship Course at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, N.M.

   The Trojans’ Pac-12 rival Arizona State is seeded second and South Florida, an impressive winner of the team title at this week’s American Athletic Conference Championship, is seeded third. Host New Mexico is seeded seventh.

   Oklahoma State, ranked sixth, is the top seed and the host at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla. The Cowboys’ in-state rival, Oklahoma, is seeded third, ACC champion Clemson is seeded second and another ACC entrant, Duke, is seeded fourth.