Kentucky Men’s Golf Eyes Crucial SEC Championship
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – The loaded Southeastern Conference will hold its championship April 23-27 at Sea Island Golf Club’s Seaside Course (par 70, 7005 yards) as 16 schools battle for the league title for the first time in the conference’s storied history.
The event will feature three rounds of stroke play Wednesday through Friday with the top eight teams advancing into the match play bracket. The quarterfinals will be contested on Saturday morning, followed by the semifinals in the afternoon. The two advancing teams will compete in the championship match on Sunday.
Live scoring will be available for the duration of the Championship on Golfstat.com. SEC Network+ will have coverage of Saturday’s semifinals beginning at 1 p.m., while Sunday’s championship match will air on SEC Network starting at 7:30 a.m.
With Texas and Oklahoma joining an already formidable array of men’s golf squads, this year’s SEC Championships will feature the No. 1 (Ole Miss), No. 2 (Auburn) and No. 3 (Texas) teams in the country, along with six total top 10 teams, 10 top 20 squads and 12 schools ranked inside the top 30.
It will mark an important week for Kentucky who enters the tournament as the No. 69 team in the Scoreboard powered by Clippd rankings, placing the Wildcats firmly on the bubble for the NCAA Regional Championships, which the team has not reached since 2022.
UK has enjoyed a stellar spring season and is coming off a runner-up result at the Mountaineer Invitational, the program’s best finish in an event since 2021. Kentucky has placed tied fourth or better in each of their last three tournaments and has been under-par as a team in three of five events this spring.
The Cats will utilize the same starting five that has featured in the team’s last three tournaments, with junior transfer Jack Schoenberger and senior captain Jansen Preston leading the way followed by the squad’s three freshmen: Jacob Lang, Gavin Clutts and Jacob Settles. Sophomore Michael Hake will also be on site as a potential substitute.
Schoenberger has been the top guy for the Wildcats all spring long and enters the tournament off back-to-back top 5s and four-consecutive top 10 finishes. The native of Alpharetta, Georgia, has a team-best scoring average of 72.07 for the season, a mark which dips to 70.93 when factoring in only the spring.
Preston is second on the team with five top 20 showings on the year and 13 rounds of par-or-better. He nabbed his first career top 10 earlier this month when he finished 7-under par at the Mason Rudolph Championship behind a career-low score of 65 in the second round.
Lang registered the best finish of his young college career at the Mountaineer Invitational, placing T9 for the tournament at 6-over par. The freshman has collected four top 20s in eight events played this season and is second on the team in spring scoring average at 72.80.
Clutts has also seen his game round into form of late, boasting a T19 finish at the Schenkel Invitational in late March and a T21 result at the Mountaineer Invitational last week. A native of Hazard, Kentucky, Clutts has dropped his scoring average from 74.29 in the fall to 73.33 this spring.
Settles, who will round out the Wildcats’ lineup this week, is coming off his best-career result at the Mountaineer Invitational where he tied for 33rd. He ranks fourth on the team with six rounds at par-or-better for the season including an opening round 69 at the Desert Mountain Collegiate in March.
Kentucky Lineup:
- Jack Schoenberger: Junior, Alpharetta, Ga.
- Jansen Preston: Senior, Lexington, Ky.
- Jacob Lang: Freshman, Alvaton, Ky.
- Gavin Clutts: Freshman, Hazard, Ky.
- Jacob Settles: Freshman, Winchester, Ky.
Substitute: Michael Hake, Sophomore, Brentwood, Tenn.
Competing Schools (16): Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt
For the latest on UK Men’s Golf follow the Wildcats on X and Instagram @UKmensgolf, and online at ukathletics.com.
