University of New Mexico Men’s Golf
Up Next: NCAA San Diego Regional
Course Information: The Farms Golf Club, Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. Par 72. Length: 6,947 yards
Format: 18 holes Thursday, Friday and Saturday; the top five teams advance to the NCAA Championship in Bradenton, Fla., from May 29-June 3
Participating Teams (Rankings by Golfweek.com): No. 6 Arizona State, No. 10 Georgia Tech, No. 15 Oklahoma, No. 23 New Mexico, No. 25 Virginia, No. 29 Georgia, No. 41 East Tennessee State, No 49 Mississippi, No. 56 San Diego, No. 57 Idaho, No. 69 St. Mary’s (Calif.), No. 98 Wichita State, No. 154 Eastern Kentucky.
Lobo Lineup: (1) Gavin Green, (2) Sam Saunders, (3) Andrej Bevins, (4) Gustavo Morantes, (5) Sean Romero
Live Scoring: Golfstat.com
It’s the white elephant in the room, but for the 23rd-ranked University of New Mexico men’s golf team, now is the opportunity to do something about it.
The Lobos are competing in the NCAA San Diego Regional that takes place Thursday-Saturday at the Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. The field consists of 13 teams, with the top five teams, based on their 54-hole score, advancing to the NCAA Championship in Bradenton, Fla., beginning May 29.
New Mexico is the No. 4 seed in the region, and coach Glen Millican says, is fully capable of advancing and giving itself a chance to compete for its ultimate goal – winning an NCAA Championship.
“We were able to play there (Farms) when we were in San Diego in March for the San Diego Classic,” Millican said. “So it definitely helps that they’ve seen the course and know some of the shots they’re going to have to play. As a coach, there’s nothing about the course that worries me in terms of what our kids can or can’t do. If they play well, they should be able to compete.”
UNM has qualified for an NCAA Regional for the 25th time in 27 years since the regional format began in 1989. The event also marks the 45th NCAA Tournament appearance for the program.
The Lobos won the Columbus Regional in 2013 en route to a fifth-place finish at the NCAA Championship in Alpharetta, Ga. UNM was one of eight teams to advance to the match-play portion of the championship, charging from 27th place after the first day of stroke play to sixth after 54 holes. The Lobos lost in the match-play quarterfinal round to eventual national champion Alabama.
Their Columbus title, however, is the lone bright spot in a recent sea of heartache at regional appearances.
Since 2009, UNM has advanced to five of the six regional opportunities. Only once – in 2013 – have the Lobos advanced to the NCAA Championship. In three of the other four appearances – 2009, 2012 and 2014 – New Mexico has finished sixth among the 13 teams.
Not only that, but in each of those sixth-place finishes, the Lobos have missed fifth place by a single stroke.
Publicly, the team has not used the 2014 Auburn Regional – where a UNM final-round charge left it one stroke short of fifth-place Texas – as a battle cry. But the memory is there.
“I can’t remember the last time that’s been brought up,” Millican said. “I’m sure it’s in the back of their minds because I know it left a bad taste in their mouths. I know I’ve been waiting to get back to regionals.”
Senior Gavin Green, who has been a part of the near-miss teams in 2012 and 2014 along with fellow senior Sean Romero, acknowledges the anguish those teams felt in coming so close.
But the motivation to play in the regionals, he says, is more about advancing and getting the chance to bring home the first NCAA title in program history.
“Ever since I got here to UNM (as a freshman during the 2011-12 season), I told myself I wanted to do something special, Green said. “So I’m going to do all I can to help Glen and the team get a national championship.”
Millican said the team got a bit of an education on preparation with its fourth-place finish at the Mountain West Championship from May 1-3 in Tucson. The Lobos entered that tournament as the two-time defending champion, and Millican said he sensed that the team put extra pressure on itself to win.
UNM played poorly down the stretch of the first round and then struggled in the second to fall back to a 19-stroke deficit. The Lobos tied for the low round over the final 18 holes and were within six shots of the lead at one point but ran out of holes for the amount of ground it had to cover.
“You want to win every event you play, but this time of year it matters more,” Millican said. “So the experience of what happened at conference should help us this week.”
The team has been playing its best golf of the year during the end of the regular season. In 10 of its last 12 rounds of stroke play, UNM is 66 under par. The two subpar rounds (13-over 301 in the final round of the San Diego Classic and 2-over 286 during the second round of the MW Championship) cost the Lobos the chance to capture those two tournaments.
Millican is confident his team can keep it together for three rounds to help it put an end to its recent regional heartbreaks.
“They went out and played well all three rounds in Georgia (at the 3M Augusta Invitational, in which the Lobos beat a field that included No. 1 Illinois, No. 3 Texas, No. 21 Oklahoma State and No. 29, Georgia – the last of which is in the San Diego Regional field),” Millican said. “They had a good practice week last week. So I expect us to come out and play well.”