Men's Golf Release - NCAA Bid - Guilford College
Greensboro, NC (05/01/03) -- Guilford College's men's golf team received its 11th bid to the NCAA Division III Men's Golf Championships, the NCAA Division III Men's Golf Committee announced Thursday. Guilford is one of 23 teams in the 120-player field, which will play for the national championship May 12-15 at the Dornoch Golf Club in Delaware, OH.
The Quakers, ranked seventh in the latest Golfstat Head-to-Head Standings and fourth in the most recent Precept Division III Coaches' Poll, were one of four teams selected from the south region. Guilford won the 2002 NCAA Tournament by six shots over neighboring Greensboro, which also received a bid to this year's championships.
Guilford won its unprecedented seventh Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) Golf Championship April 22 and finished seventh or better in eight of 10 tournaments this season. The Quakers finished third among 12 teams at the Wilson/Gordin Collegiate Classic last October. Eleven of the 12 Division III Gordin competitors received bids to the 2003 NCAA Championship.
The Quakers feature the defending national runner up in junior Dave Patterson (Fort Pierce, FL/Fort Pierce Central), who is ranked 136th among all college golfers (3rd in Division III) according to the April 30 Golfstat Cup ratings. He averages 72.60 strokes in 20 rounds this year, which is lower than Savio Nazareth's '03 school-record 72.80 average set in 2001. Patterson earned first-team All-America honors last season and picked up Guilford's fourth straight ODAC Golfer of the Year Award April 22. Other top players include freshman Brant Stovall (Lawsonville, NC/South Stokes), a first-team All-ODAC selection, and classmate Chris Lowman (Siler City, NC/Jordan-Matthews), a second-team all-league pick.
Head coach Jack Jensen's Quakers have advanced to the national tournament 22 times in Jensen's 27 years at the helm. In addition to 11 NCAA Division III Tournament berths, he led Guilford to 11 appearances in the NAIA National Tournament and won the 1989 NAIA title.