FAYETTEVILLE — The University of Arkansas men’s golf team will hope to parlay its best effort of the spring season into a memorable postseason run, starting today in south Georgia.
The Razorbacks will tee off on the 10th hole today at 9:20 a.m. Central in the SEC Championships at Sea Island Golf Club on St. Simons Island, Ga., with playing partners LSU and Missouri.
The 14-team field will compete in three rounds of stroke play through Friday, after which the field will be seeded for an eight-team match play and medalist honors will be awarded. Two rounds of match play will take place on Saturday and the championship match will be held on Sunday starting at 6:30 a.m. Central.
The veteran Razorbacks, under 17th-year Coach Brad McMakin, had not found their groove this spring until a third-place showing at the Lewis Chitengwa Memorial in Charlottesville, Va., which concluded April 11.
Mateo Fernandez de Oliveira, playing on the heels of his first appearance in the Masters a few days before, fired a final-round 65, while Segundo Oliva Pinto led the Razorbacks with a tie for fifth at 8-under par.
The Razorbacks, who have a 56-50-2 record this season, will need to finish 10th or better to assure a .500 record and eligibility for the NCAA Championships, which begin May 15. Arkansas has competed in 14 consecutive NCAA regionals under McMakin, including a second-place showing in 2009.
Fernandez de Oliveira will play out of the No. 1 position for the Razorbacks, followed by fellow seniors Julian Perico, Pinto and Wil Gibson, then junior Manuel Lozada. Transfer junior Christian Castillo will serve as the Razorbacks’ alternate.
The competition, in what is typically windy conditions, is expected to be fierce, with eight teams in the top 25: No. 1 Vanderbilt, No. 8 Auburn, No. 9 Florida, No. 13 Tennessee, No. 15 Texas A&M, No. 17 Alabama, No. 18 Mississippi State and No. 21 Ole Miss.
No. 31 Georgia, No. 36 Arkansas, No. 41 LSU, No. 43 Missouri and unranked Kentucky and South Carolina round out the field.
Arkansas captured SEC titles in 1995 and 2019, the latter sparked by Perico’s eighth-place finish and 3-0 record during match play when he was a freshman. Pinto became the third Razorback to claim medalist honors in 2021, the same season he went 3-0 in match play as Arkansas fell to Vanderbilt in the championship match.
Other past champions for the Razorbacks were are Still in 1995 and Sebastian Cappelen in 2013.