Men’s Golf Team Earns NCAA Bid

The University of Hartford men’s golf team earned one of 27 spots at the 2007 NCAA East Regional, as announced by the NCAA in a conference call Monday night.

The Hawks will make their 14th appearance in the NCAA Championship, which begins May 17 with regional play at three sites across the country. Hartford will play at The Golf Club of Georgia in Alpharetta, Ga. The other regional sites are Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill., and the ASU Karsten Golf Course in Tempe, Ariz. The 30 schools that move on to the finals will play at the Golden Horseshoe Golf Club (Gold Course) in Williamsburg, Va.

Hartford, which joins the University of Rhode Island and Boston College as District I representatives, will play a practice round at The Golf Club of Georgia on May 16 to prepare for the three-day tournament. Each day of the tournament will feature one round of 18 holes, with the top 10 teams advancing to the national finals.

Hartford’s resume includes this past weekend’s win at the 2007 America East Championship, in which the Hawks beat Binghamton in a sudden-death playoff. The team also picked up wins earlier in the season at the Purple & Red Invitational and the Yale Spring Open.

“I am proud of what our team has been able to accomplish this season,” said Head Coach Bill Poutre, who was tabbed America East Coach of the Year. “This is the first step of putting our program back on the national scene. We took care of business in New England, and I think the tough competition we faced in tournaments in Utah, California and Hawaii has prepared us for the kind of teams we’ll see in Georgia. Overall, I think this team has the talent to be one of the top 10 teams at the regional.”

The 27 teams at the NCAA East Regional include: Georgia, Clemson, Florida, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Charlotte, North Carolina, Florida State, Duke, Auburn, Mississippi, Chattanooga, Alabama-Birmingham, Central Florida, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Old Dominion, Jackson State, Louisiana Lafayette, St. John’s, Eastern Michigan, Maryland, Longwood, Rhode Island, Hartford and Boston College.

The Hawks were a mainstay in the NCAA Tournament from 1985-95 and made their last appearance in 2001. Hartford has also won 12 America East Championships and had Jerry Kelly, Tim Petrovic and Patrick Sheehan move on to successful careers on the PGA Tour.