Kentucky Opens Play at NCAA Athens Regional Monday

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Kentucky men’s golf team begins postseason action on Monday, as the Wildcats travel to Athens, Georgia to participate in the Athens Regional of the 2019 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championship.
 
A loaded and familiar field awaits the Wildcats at the University of Georgia Golf Course May 13-15. The three-day, 54-hole tournament will decide which five teams move on as part of the NCAA Championship field of 30. Live stats are available via golfstat.com.
 
“This is the most fun tournament of the year,” UK head coach Brian Craig said. “I love it and so do my guys. The golf course here at UGA is terrific and a very demanding test of golf. I think it fits our team well, but the bottom line is we just need to execute. If we do that and focus only on things we can control, I think we will do just fine.”
 
Seniors Lukas Euler, Max Mehles and Fred Allen Meyer, junior Matt Liston and freshman Cullan Brown will suit up for the Wildcats this week. Redshirt freshman Zach Norris will serve as the team’s alternate player. It marks the second straight postseason event in which UK will field this lineup. Kentucky will take on the 13-team regional that features four other teams from the Southeastern Conference, including the host 14th-ranked Bulldogs, No. 4 Vanderbilt, No. 21 Alabama and Tennessee. The remainder of the field includes No. 9 Duke, No. 19 Liberty, Campbell, Nevada, SMU, Memphis, UNC Wilmington and Princeton.
 
The field will begin in three-team pairings at 11 a.m. ET at the UGA Golf Course. Kentucky will begin the week paired with Campbell and Nevada and will begin play at 11:55 a.m. off the No. 1 tee.
 
While the field is packed with talented teams, Kentucky is playing some of its best golf of the season of late. The Wildcats were one of the eight teams to advance to match play at the SEC Championship after 54-holes of stroke play. It was the first time Kentucky had moved on past stroke play in the three-year history of match play at the event.
 
The Wildcats were fueled by a season-low round of 275 and the fourth-lowest tournament score (843) under Craig. Additionally, Brown, Euler and Mehles all tied for ninth on the individual leaderboard.
 
Kentucky was not satisfied with just advancing to match play, as the Wildcats handily defeated Tennessee, 4-1-0. Meyer, Brown, Mehles and Euler all won their matchups. Against top-seeded Auburn, Liston led UK to its first point of the matchup in a 2&1 win. Euler also secured a point for the Wildcats; however, the Tigers prevailed in the third playoff hole to take the edge 3-2-0 and advance to the championship.
 
Kentucky’s stellar play of late started before the SECs, though. It began with a fourth-place showing at the Mason Rudolph Championship, which included a then-season-low round of 279 to start the week. Brown logged a Craig-era record with a round of 64 to begin the tournament en route to his first career top-10 finish on the individual leaderboard.
 
That momentum carried into a fourth-place finish at the Shoal Creek Invitational, the team’s final regular-season event. Meyer led the way there with a top-10 individual finish and a career-low round of 65. Euler and Brown also charted top-20 finishes.
 
This marks the 12th postseason regional appearance for Kentucky under the direction of Craig. The Wildcats placed fifth in 2018, seventh in 2017, fourth in 2016 and 2014, 10th in 2013, ninth in 2009, 17th in 2008, 10th in 2006, fourth in 2005, first in 2004 and sixth in 2003.
 
Euler, Meyer and Mehles all have NCAA Regional and Championship experience and the Wildcats will lean on that veteran presence this week in their quest for a third NCAA Championship appearance in the last four years. Euler has appeared on UK’s roster for the NCAA Regional in all four years of his career. He has two top-20 finishes in this round, including a tie for sixth that propelled UK into the NCAA Championship during his freshman season. The Wildcats would go on to place in the top 15 at the NCAA Championship behind Euler’s late stellar play.
 
Meyer will make his third-consecutive start at the NCAA Regional. He tied for 32nd a season ago at the College Station, Texas, regional. Mehles was also a part of last year’s squad finishing in a tie for 50th. Liston was UK’s alternate player during the NCAA postseason a season ago, but did not appear in a round. 
 
The NCAA Regional field is comprised of 81 teams and 45 individuals and will compete in six regional sites, May 13-15 (13 teams and 10 individuals at three regionals and 14 teams and five individuals at three regionals). Thirty teams and six individuals will advance from regional sites to the National Championship to be played May 24-29 at Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
 
The six regional sites include Palouse Ridge Golf Club in Pullman, Washington, hosted by Washington State University; Stanford Golf Course in Stanford, California, hosted by Stanford University; TPC Myrtle Beach in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, hosted by Coastal Carolina University and Myrtle Beach Regional Sports Alliance; University of Louisville Golf Club in Simpsonville, Kentucky, hosted by the University of Louisville; University of Georgia Golf Course in Athens, Georgia, hosted by the University of Georgia; and University of Texas Golf Club in Austin, Texas, hosted by the University of Texas.
 
The University of Georgia Golf Course opened in 1968 with the purpose of supporting the university community and a collegiate golf program. Over the years the course has become an important recreation facility not only for the University, but for the state of Georgia as a whole.

Avid golfer Dr. Omer C. Aderhold served as the University of Georgia’s President from 1950-67 and was a driving force behind the creation of the UGA Golf Course.

The University already owned the land and Dr. Aderhold was a personal friend of Robert Trent Jones Sr., the golf course’s architect. In addition, UGA students were so interested in having a golf course that they agreed to pay for it in their student activity fees over a five-year period during the 1960s.
 
For the latest on the Kentucky men’s golf team, follow @UKMensGolf on Twitter and on the web at UKathletics.com.