No. 4 Seed Huskies Begin Championship Quest
May 30, 2010
• NCAA Championship Tournament Central
• Complete Release in PDF Format 
OOLTEWAH, Tenn. -- Thirty teams and six individuals advanced from six regionals to the NCAA Championships at The Honors Course in Ooltewah, Tennessee hosted by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Three rounds of stroke play will start on Tuesday, June 1 and run through Thursday. The top eight teams from stroke play will advance to match play, which runs Friday through Sunday. Only one round is scheduled per day with the tee times starting at 7:00 a.m. and running through 2:05 p.m.
Washington is seeded No. 4 overall after the NCAA Men's Golf Committee re-seeded teams. The Huskies will be paired with No. 5 Texas and No. 6 Texas Tech in the first and second rounds. UW will tee off at 12:30 p.m. from the No. 1 tee on Tuesday and at 7:20 a.m. from the 10th tee on Wednesday. Thursday's pairing will be determined by results after the second round. Husky Coach Matt Thurmond is going with the same lineup he used in the NCAA West Regional: seniors Nick Taylor, Richard Lee, Darren Wallace and freshmen Charlie Hughes and Chris Williams.
The Huskies have never won the NCAA Team Championship but have six top-10 finishes at the Championship, including five over the last six seasons. The team's best-ever finish was third in 2005 when James Lepp was also the individual medalist. The Huskies were fifth in last year's championship, losing to Arkansas 3-2 in the quarterfinals of match play.
THE COURSE
Participants will play on The Honors Course, a par-72, 7,395-yard Pete Dye-designed track outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The last time The Honors Course hosted the NCAA Championship was in 1996 when Arizona State won the team title and Tiger Woods the individual championship.
LIVE COVERAGE
Live scoring will be available daily on Golfstat.com. In addition, GoHuskies.com will have daily recaps, quotes,
video interviews and blogs about the tournament and NCAA.com will have live video of holes 16, 17 and 18
during the second and third round of stroke play.
THE FIELD
1. Oregon*
2. Stanford*
3. Oklahoma State
4. Washington*
5. Texas
6. Texas Tech
7. Texas A&M
8. Southern California*
9. Augusta State
10. Florida State
11. Clemson
12. UCLA*
13. Florida
14. Georgia Tech
15. UNLV
16. Kent State
17. TCU
18. San Diego
19. California*<>
r>
20. Arizona State*
21. Oregon State*
22. North Florida
23. Duke
24. Tennessee
25. Penn State
26. Virginia
27. Illinois
28. LSU
29. Baylor
30. Georgia Southern
* Pac-10 School
Individuals
1. Epsen Kostad, Denver
2. Russell Henly, Georgia
3. Nick Delio, CS-Northridge
4. Rhys Enoch, ETSU
5. Robbie Fillmore, BYU
6. Marshall Bailey, Virginia Tech
UW Dominates The West Regional
Washington claimed its second-ever NCAA Regional team championship
last week in the West at Gold Mountain Golf Complex in Bremerton,
Wash. The Huskies lapped the fi eld, winning by 29 strokes over USC and
Illinois to claim its fi rst regional title since 2002. Husky individuals swept
the top three spots, another UW fi rst. Richard Lee won by two strokes
over Chris Williams and Darren Wallace tied for third, three shots off
the lead. For Lee, he shot -8 (208) to claim his fi rst collegiate individual
championship and become the fi rst Husky to win a regional.
Taylor Takes Home The Ben Hogan Award
Nick Taylor nabbed the Ben Hogan Award on May 24, the first Husky
to ever win college golf's most prestigious individual honor. Taylor edged
out Alabama's Bud Cauley and Georgia's Russell Henley in a ceremony at
Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. Taylor was a top-10 fi nisher
in 9 of 12 events this season and has a team-best scoring average of
70.89. His stroke average is the second-lowest in team history. During
the summer, after fi nishing tied for ninth at last year's NCAA Championships,
he was low amateur at the U.S. Open where he tied for 36th. He
spent 21 weeks at the top of the World Amateur Golf Rankings (June
15-Nov. 4, 2009) and currently occupies the top spot in the Players World
Amateur Ranking (SPWAR). Two golfers from the state of Washington --
Ryan Moore of Puyallup (UNLV) and Kyle Stanley of Gig Harbor (Clemson)
-- have won the award previously.
Aces Wild
Chris Williams not only set an Olympic Course record in the fi nal round
of the NCAA West Regional by shooting a 7-under-par 65, but he notched
an amazing hole-in-one on the No. 8 hole. Williams hit a cut fi ve-iron that
dunked directly into the hole without bouncing or rolling. His shot took
out the front lip of the cup and forced the groundscrew to move the hole
about a foot away from its original spot. For Williams, the ace was the
first of his career and set off a wild celebration with him and his playing
partners, plus coach Matt Thurmond who witnessed the ball go in.
Pac-10 Champs Again
For the first time in school history, Washington claimed the Pac-10 Conference
Championship in back-to-back years. The Huskies had to make
an improbable rally to win their sixth overall conference championship.
The UW trailed Stanford by seven strokes heading into the fi nal round
but came back to win by three strokes over the Cardinal. A par-saving 40-
foot putt by Richard Lee secured the win for the Huskies. Lee fi nished
third overall and shot a 14-under 270, the best four-round score ever by
a Husky. Overall, Washington has won conferenence tournament titles in
2010, 2009, 2005, 1988, 1963 and 1961.
Pac-10 Dominance
Making the Huskies Pac-10 Championship all the more impressive was
the fact that the conference was arguably the toughest in the nation.
Washington was one of four conference squads -- joining UCLA, Oregon
and Stanford -- that earned a No. 1 seed in one of the six NCAA Regionals.
Further validating the conference's strength were the No. 2 seeds
earned by Arizona State and USC. All six of the aforementioned teams,
plus California and Oregon State advanced to the upcoming NCAA Championships.
Huskies In The NCAA's
The Huskies have appeared in NCAA Regionals in all of Matt Thurmond's
nine seasons at the team's helm. They have advanced to the NCAA
Championships in all but one of his seasons and in now 10 of the last 11
years overall. UW was a No. 1 seed in 2009, the school's fi rst top seed,
and fi nished fi fth after stroke play action at the Championships. They
ended up fi fth after dropping a 3-2 decision in match play to Arkansas.
