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Contributed by Lance Fleming, ACU Director of Athletics for Media Relations
McKINNEY - The ACU Wildcats will close out the 2016 spring season this week at the 53rd Southland Conference men's golf championship tournament at Stonebridge Ranch Country Club.
Sam Houston State will be trying to win a third straight title and fifth overall championship on the par-72, 7,219-yard Pete Dye Signature Course where the championship returns for the fifth straight season.
Because of expected heavy rain in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex over the three days of the tournament (Monday-Wednesday), the tournament has switched to a shotgun-start format at 9 a.m. on the Dye Course. ACU's players - Ryan Beatty, Dillon Vaughn, Garrett Glanton, Clarke Hudgins and Robert Johnson - will be paired with Incarnate Word for Monday's first round with those five twosomes teeing off on holes 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18, respectively.
McNeese State, Southeastern Louisiana and Sam Houston are the favorites entering the tournament, though Lamar, Central Arkansas, Houston Baptist and UIW have already claimed team titles already this season. However, UIW, along with Abilene Christian, will be ineligible to win the team title while in transition to Division I from Division II.
McNeese State, which will be looking to claim its first Southland title since 1979, heads into the tournament as the league's highest-ranked team according to Golfstat, which is used to seed the teams in the opening round. The Cowboys finished second last season in the conference tournament, which was their best finish since 1986, where they also finished in second place. McNeese has won two tournaments this season and is led by senior Martin Eriksson, who leads the league in stroke average with a 71.77.
"McNeese is the heavy favorite, but with golf, you just never know how things will shake out until the final putt drops," ACU head coach Tom Shaw said. "I think we could make some noise and surprise some people."
ACU and UIW, which are not eligible to earn the Southland's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament during their transition period from Division II to Division I, will be participating in this year's tournament unattached. If the Wildcats or Cardinals were to win the event, the next-highest finishing team will move on to represent the Southland in an NCAA regional. Likewise, the Southland's top individual, excluding ACU and UIW, automatically qualifies for the NCAA tournament.
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