May 31, 2010
2010 NCAA Tournament Media Supplement 
The defending NCAA Champion Texas A&M men's golf team will be aiming for its second consecutive national team title when the Aggies tee it up at the 2010 NCAA Championships June 1-6 at The Honors Course.
           Last year the underdog Aggies tied for seventh in stroke play to advance to match play and then posted head-to-head wins over Arizona State (3.5-1.5), Michigan (3.5-1.5) and Arkansas (3-2) for the program's first-ever NCAA Championship. The Aggies, who are seeded No. 7, will begin teeing off at 11:59 a.m. (central time) from the 10th hole on Tuesday, and are paired with USC and Augusta State.
                 Two veterans of last year's NCAA Championships - senior Andrea Pavan and junior Conrad Shindler - will join forces with junior Nacho Elvira and NCAA first-timers sophomore Jordan Russell and freshman Cameron Peck as the Aggies try to make it two in a row.
                 Aggies head coach J.T. Higgins said his team will use the same approach at the NCAA Championships that has allowed them to win four tournaments and never finish out of the top five at any tournament in 2009-10. The Aggies posted wins at the Lone Star Invitational at Briggs Ranch, the Baylor Invitational, the John Burns Intercollegiate and their home tournament, the Aggie Invitational. A&M goes into the NCAA Championships coming off of runner-up team finishes at the Big 12 Championships and the NCAA South Central Regional.
                 "We have to look at it as just another tournament," Higgins said. "Obviously, it's a BIG one and we want to win it, but at the same time we have to prepare the same way as we always do. We can't worry about what happened last year, because it really doesn't have any relevance to what we're going to do this week. We're just going to go play as hard as we can."
                 After earning their trips to nationals on their friendly home track at the NCAA South Central Regional, the Aggies will be seeing The Honors Course for the first time. The prospect of seeing a course for the first time in most important tournament of the year doesn't faze Higgins.
                 "I would be concerned, but no one is familiar with (The Honors Course)," Higgins said. "The course is very exclusive. They have one amateur tournament a year. I would say that 90 percent of the field has never stepped foot on the golf course, so no one is going to know what they're in for. I was fortunate enough to be there in 1996 when they hosted the national championship, but I don't remember every single hole. I just remember that it was really tough - the rough was long, the greens were fast and you better hit your driver in play or it was going to be a long day."
       The Honors Course and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga welcomes 156 student-athletes - 30 teams and six individuals - to compete for the NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championship on what is considered one of the elite courses in the world. The championship consists of 54 holes of medal play followed by three rounds of match play.
       All 30 teams and six individuals will compete for 54 holes of medal play, 18 per day, to determine the individual medalist Tuesday, June 1, through Thursday, June 3. The top eight teams then qualify for match play.
       The teams will seed by their order of finish in medal play and square off in a single-elimination bracket playing one round of match play each day to determine the team champion.
Tournament Central can be accessed at the Chattanooga website: http://www.gomocs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=17700&ATCLID=2049512