Texas Tech University Athletics
Texas Tech Athletics
NCAA Championship
PREVIEW: NCAA Men's Golf Championship
May 24, 2022 | Men's Golf
LUBBOCK, Texas – Texas Tech is set to open the NCAA Men's Golf Championships this weekend at the Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona as the eighth seed. Competing in the national tournament for the 14th time in program history, the Red Raiders will begin teeing off at 2:25 p.m. (CST) on Friday in the afternoon wave before playing in the morning wave on Saturday.
Tech is led by Ludvig Aberg who was named the Ben Hogan Award winner on Monday night and enters the national tournament at No. 2 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and Golfstat collegiate rating. He won the 2022 Big 12 Championship by shooting 8-under-par for his fourth collegiate victory. Along with Aberg, the Red Raiders will be represented by Baard Skogen, Andy Lopez, Calum Scott, Carl Didrik Meen Fosaas and Sandy Scott. The program is led by head coach Greg Sands who is in his 21st season and assistant coach Nathan Weant who is in his second. Sands was inducted into the GCAA Hall of Fame on December 6, 2021 in Las Vegas.
The Red Raiders will be paired with No. 7 Texas and No. 9 Florida during the first two rounds of the tournament. Golf Channel will provide coverage on Monday during the final 18 holes of stroke play followed by live coverage on Tuesday and Wednesday of match play.Â
All 30 teams at the NCAA Championships and six individuals will complete 54 holes of stroke play. Following 54 holes of competition, the top 15 teams along with the top nine individuals not on an advancing team will advance for one additional day of stroke play to determine the top eight teams for match-play competition and the 72-hole stroke-play individual champion. The top eight teams after 72 holes of play will be placed into a bracket with the No. 1 seed playing the No. 8 seed, the No. 2 seed playing the No. 7 seed, the No. 3 seed playing the No. 6 seed and the No. 4 seed playing the No. 5 seed in match play.
In team match-play competition, a total of five points will be available with one point being awarded for each individual match. Winning teams will advance to the semifinals and subsequently, the finals. The first team to win three points within the team match will advance, or in the case of the final match, be declared the national champion.
Tech is coming into the NCAA Championship after finishing fourth at the Big 12 Championship and then third at the NCAA New Haven Regional to advance to Scottsdale. The Red Raiders shot 16-under as a team at the Yale Golf Course to finish behind Wake Forest (-26) and North Carolina (-16). Aberg led the Red Raiders by shooting 5-under for a sixth-place finish at the regional while Skogen earned a top-10 finish (T9) by finishing at 4-under. Meen Fosaas shot -3 (T12) and Lopez was even-par for a T25 result.
The Red Raiders have two runner-up results on their resume for the season with second-place showings at the Ameri Ari in Hawaii to begin the spring season and then taking second at the Cabo Collegiate. Tech was third at the Aggie Invitational and Thunderbird Collegiate in its final two regular-season tournaments of the year.
An Eslov, Sweden native, Aberg has recorded top-6 or better finishes in seven straight tournaments, including winning The Prestige and Big 12 Championship. He is coming off an All-American sophomore season where he finished eighth at the NCAA Championship last season at Grayhawk by shooting 1-under (68-76-69-66) during the four rounds. Â Skogen is a sophomore from Norway who is currently at No. 61 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. He has five top-10 finishes this season after his T9 at the regional tournament along with runner-up showings at the Maridoe Collegiate in the fall and then at the Amer Ari in Hawaii to begin the spring season. He was fourth at the Aggie Invitational in College Station, Texas where he shot 5-over. Lopez earned all-America honors in the 2020-21 season and has two top-10 showings in his super senior season. A Plano, Texas native, Lopez finished fifth at The Prestige and sixth at the Aggie Invitational.
Lopez, Aberg and Skogen played at last year's NCAA Championship in Scottsdale, while Sandy Scott competed in the 2018 NCAA Championship which was played at Karsten Creek in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The Red Raiders advanced to the national quarterfinals in 2018 during Sandy's sophomore season.
Texas Tech is making its 14th trip to the NCAA Championships with its first appearance coming in 1956 in Columbus, Ohio and most recently last season in Scottsdale. This is only the second time in program history that the team has made the national tournament in back-to-back seasons with the other time coming in 2006 and 2007.
The Big 12 is well represented in the tournament with No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 2 Oklahoma State headlining the NCAA Championship while Kansas is at No. 19. The first ball of the 2022 NCAA Championship is scheduled to be hit at 6:10 a.m. local time on No. 10 by the grouping of Auburn, Florida State and Ole Miss. Live results will be on Golfstat.com throughout the tournament.
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Players Mentioned
