May 16, 2000
The Texas A&M men's golf team will compete in the NCAA Central Regional Thursday through Saturday at Victoria Country Club in Victoria, Texas. The top nine teams in the tournament will advance to the NCAA Championships May 31-June 3 at Grand National Golf Complex in Opelika, Ala.
The nine teams from the central regional will join 11 teams from the NCAA East Regional (Thursday-Saturday in Moosic, Penn.) and 10 teams from the NCAA West Regional (Thursday-Saturday in Madera, Calif.) to form the 30-team NCAA field.
The NCAA Central Regional will consist of 18 holes each day for a total of 54 holes on the par 72, 6,870-yard layout. The Aggies will tee off at 12:36 p.m. on Thursday and at 7:30 a.m. on Friday. Saturday's tee times will be determined after Friday's round.
Joining The No. 39-ranked Aggies in the field will be No. 3 Oklahoma State, No. 10 Houston, No. 20 Kent, No. 23 Texas, No. 25 Kansas, No. 29 Colorado, No. 31 Oklahoma, No. 36 TCU, No. 45 Minnesota, No. 47 Mississippi, Baylor, Ohio State, North Texas, Toledo, SMU, Michigan, Southeastern Louisiana, Tulsa, Louisiana-Lafayette, Arkansas State, Arkansas-Little Rock, Wichita State, Coastal Carolina, Jackson State and Oral Roberts.
Six individuals will also compete in the NCAA Central Regional - Lee Curry of Miami (Ohio), Stuart Anderson of Illinois, Rohan Allwood of Southwest Missouri State, Craig Lile of Arkansas, Adam Babb of Texas-Arlington and Lance Dunaway of Stephen F. Austin. The top two individuals in the regional not on an advancing team will receive a berth in the NCAA Championships.
With two true freshmen, one sophomore, one junior and only one senior in the lineup, the Aggies are one of the youngest teams in the regional field. Joining senior Ty Cox in the lineup are freshmen Matt Lindholm and Dwayne Morley, sophomore Sean Gilliland and junior Casey Cronin.
Cox is the Aggies only player with NCAA regional experience, tying for 15th in 1996, tying for 22nd in 1997 and tying for 103rd in 1998. Lindholm leads the Aggies in scoring with a 74.33 average, and could become the first freshman in school history to post the team's top scoring average. Four players have posted at least one top 10 finish this season and all have at least one round of 69 or better. Gilliland earned All-Big 12 honors this season, but slipped to a 75th place finish at The Maxwell last week in Ardmore, Okla., as the Aggies struggled to a 13th-place finish.
"We didn't play very well last week at The Maxwell, but we are capable of pulling it all together at the regional," A&M coach Bob Ellis said. "Regional competition is always tough. To make it through to the NCAA Championships, we will have to play our best golf . We have a young team but they are all excellent players. They understand what they have to do for us to advance. It's just a matter of going out and performing like we are capable."