CLEMSON, S.C. — The Clemson men’s golf team received a bid to the Marana, Arizona Regional of the NCAA Men’s Golf Tournament on Wednesday. The 14-team event will be held at the Gallery Golf Club in Marana, Arizona, a facility just 30 miles from Tucson.
The three-day 54-hole tournament will be played Monday, May 18 through Wednesday, May 20 with the top five teams advancing to the NCAA National Championship Tournament at Carlsbad, Calif. May 29-June 3.
Clemson, rated 33rd in the nation according to the latest Scoreboard/Clippd national rankings, is the number-six seed in the Marana Regional. Other teams in the regional include number-one seed and defending national champion Oklahoma State, second seed LSU, third seed and host school Arizona, fourth seeded Alabama, and fifth seed Duke.
After the Tigers at the sixth seed are seventh seed San Diego State, #8 Arkansas State, #9 West Virginia, #10 Florida Gulf Coast, #11 St. Mary’s (CA), #12 Tarleton State, #13 North Dakota State and #14 Iona.
Clemson has competed this year in tournament play against seven of the other 13 teams in the regional and has a strong 10-3-1 record against those teams, including 1-0 vs. top seed Oklahoma State, 1-0 vs. #4 Alabama and 4-1 vs. #5 Duke.
Clemson has played a challenging schedule this year and has competed against 48 of the other 80 teams in the NCAA Tournament across the six regionals.
The Gallery Golf Club has two courses, North and South. Both were designed by Jack Nicklaus. The 2007 and 2008 WGC Accenture Match Play championships were played on the North Course. Tiger Woods won the championship in 2008. This is the first time an NCAA Tournament has been held there.
This will be Clemson’s 44th appearance in the NCAA Men’s Golf Tournament. The program has advanced to the national tournament 34 times. Clemson has won the NCAA Regional Championship eight times, including as recent as 2024 when Jordan Byrd’s team won the Chapel Hill regional.
Clemson won the National Championship in 2003 at Oklahoma State, has nine top 5 finishes and 14 top 10s.
Clemson enters the NCAA tournament with a 91-56-3 record against its opposition in 10 tournaments so far this season. The schedule includes team victories at the Marquette Invitational at Erin Hills in October, and the Mountaineer Invitational April 13-14.
Clemson has played well down the stretch, posting a tie for fourth out of 15 teams at The Hootie, the championship at the Mountaineer Invitational and a sixth place at the ACC Championship. Clemson reached the quarterfinals of match play at the ACC Championship.
The victory at the Mountaineer was noteworthy because the Tigers defeated NCAA Tournament top seeds Florida, Arkansas and Oklahoma State in addition to host school and NCAA Tournament team West Virginia at that event.
Byrd will enlist the same lineup for the Marana NCAA regional he has used in each of the last three tournaments. The lineup includes seniors Thomas Higgins and Lucas Augustsson, junior Oscar Bredkjaer and sophomores Rich Wills and Colin Salema.
Bredkjaer has the top stroke average on the team at 72.00 for his 26 round and nine tournaments. He has two Top 10s, 10 under-par rounds and seven rounds in the 60s. He finished 17th at the recent ACC Championship and also has top 10s at the Bryan Brothers and The Hayt.
Augustsson is second on the team in stroke average at 72.21, but he leads the team in rounds in the 60s with eight, and under-par rounds with 13. The transfer from East Carolina finished third at The Hootie at Bulls Bay to lead Clemson to a fourth-place finish. He also finished fifth at the Mountaineer Invitational.
Higgins has a 72.58 stroke average, fourth on the team. The senior from Ireland who has played all four years at Clemson had 11 under-par rounds and seven rounds in the 60s. He was Clemson’s top golfer at the Mountaineer Invitational with a second-place finish thanks to a 10-under-par tournament score of 206. Higgins was a key to Clemson’s 2024 NCAA Regional championship at Chapel Hill, NC in 2024 when he finished 14th and had a second round 63, the best round of his career.
Wills is fourth on the team in stroke average at 72.74 and is coming off arguably his most important tournament. He finished 15th at the ACC Championship with a 54-hole score of two-under-par 214. It marked the first time this year he was Clemson’s top player at a tournament.
Salema, like Wills a sophomore, has a 73.43 stroke average this year for his team best 30 rounds. He has nine rounds at par or better. He finished third at the Marquette Invitational when he helped the Tigers to the team title.