FAYETTEVILLE -- The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville will host the NCAA golf championships for the first time in 2019, and the NCAA indoor track and field championships are headed back to the UA in 2021.
The announcements were made by the NCAA on Tuesday.
Arkansas also will host NCAA regional events in outdoor track and field, cross country and gymnastics between 2019 and 2022.
The Razorbacks will host both the men's and women's NCAA golf championships at The Blessings in Fayetteville in 2019. The women's tournament will take place May 17-22, and the men's championship will follow from May 23-29.
Brad McMakin, Arkansas men's golf coach, said the school spent about two years putting together its bid at The Blessings, which hosted its first NCAA regional on the men's side in 2013.
"It'll be nice to bring it to the state of Arkansas and have some people come out and watch the guys play, and we should have a good team," McMakin said. "Five of the six guys we have this year will be juniors and seniors, so we kind of prepared for that.
"Knowing we could have it on our home course, we wanted to get our roster kind of set up in that direction with this class coming in this year, so fortunately we got it at the right time. We should have one of the top programs in the country playing on our home golf course. We figure it'll give us a chance to get to the eight and have a chance to contend for the national championship."
The Razorbacks will host the NCAA indoor track and field meet at the Randal Tyson Center on March 12-13, 2021.
It will be the 13th time the UA has hosted the NCAA indoor championships and first time since 2015.
The Arkansas men's teams have won five NCAA indoor titles at home under Coach John McDonnell -- who retired in 2008 -- in 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2006 and under Coach Chris Bucknam in 2013.
"We feel like we have the necessary amenities to host one of the best track meets in the world," Bucknam said. "I'm happy we'll be able to plan for 2021 and try to knock it out of the park.
"We have a rich tradition here of hosting national championships. We have the officials group, we have the huge addition of the Fowler indoor track and baseball training facility that provides a first-class warmup area."
The Arkansas women's team won the NCAA indoor title in 2015 under Coach Lance Harter.
"It's always nice to bring the indoor nationals back to Fayetteville," Harter said. "I think everybody loves coming here.
"We always have great fan support, it's officiated perfectly, and the Tyson Center is just hard to duplicate. I think everyone would much prefer to be in Fayetteville.
"Specifically for Arkansas, there's nothing better than running on your home track in front of your crowd and all those fans and parents and alumni that come back. It's truly special."
Arkansas will host the NCAA outdoor track and field West preliminaries May 23-25, 2019, at John McDonnell Field; an NCAA cross country regional Nov. 15, 2019, at the Agri Park course; and an NCAA gymnastics regional April 2, 2022, at Barnhill Arena.
Democrat-Gazette staff writer Tom Murphy contributed to this report.
Sports on 04/19/2017