STILLWATER, Okla. - Coach Buddy Alexander and the Florida men's golf team will seek their fifth national championship title this week at the Karsten Creek Golf Course in Stillwater, Okla.
Thirty teams and six individuals will play during the event, which runs through Sunday.
Defending champion Augusta State will tee off at 1:40 p.m. today with Florida and Georgia Tech, while host Oklahoma State — which was last year's runner-up — will tee off at 1:20 p.m.
The tournament's first three days will feature teams and individuals competing in stroke play, with the individual winner determined after play ends Thursday.
The top eight teams advance to match play team championship, which will run from Friday through Sunday.
The Gators come in the tournament as the fifth-seeded team, behind Oklahoma State (1), UCLA (2), Alabama (3) and Georgia Tech (4).
Florida has had a record-breaking season, winning five tournaments, the most since the 2003-04 season. In addition, three different players have won six individual tournament titles, matching Florida's all-time high of medalists in a season with 1990's team.
Those three players also rank in the top five of the lowest single-season stroke averages in Florida history: Senior Bank Vongvanij ranks first (70.70 in 33 rounds), sophomore Phillip Choi ranks fourth (71.00 in 33 rounds) and redshirt-senior Andres Echavarria ranks fifth (73.02 in 24 rounds). The only other Gator in the top five is Camilo Villegas, who had the lowest average in two different seasons.
In addition to Vongvanij, Choi and Echavarria, sophomores Tommy Mou and Tyler McCumber round out the lineup. Mou is coming off a career-low round after shooting two-under par in the third round of the NCAA Southeast Regional tournament to give the Gators a first-place finish. McCumber returns to the lineup after sitting out at the regional tournament with a broken finger.
