NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Commodores are headed to Palm Beach Gardens.
On Wednesday, the NCAA announced Vanderbilt as the No. 1 seed in the Palm Beach Gardens Regional. Vandy will head to the Florida site for three days of stroke play competition May 16-18 at the PGA National Resort on the Champions Course.
It needs to finish among the top five teams to advance to the NCAA Championships starting May 27 in Scottsdale, Arizona.
“Postseason golf is really as good as it gets as a college golfer. I’m excited that our kids earned a No. 1 seed in the tournament and I think it says a tremendous amount about the steps we have taken,” Vanderbilt head coach Scott Limbaugh said. “We appreciate the work that the committee put into this field and we are pumped to be heading down to PGA National. It’s a great golf course and certainly and challenging course against a lot of great competition.”
Vanderbilt, back-to-back Southeastern Conference champions, has won five of its last six tournaments going into the national postseason. In 2021, Vandy won the Kingston Springs Regional at the Golf Club of Tennessee – the first NCAA Regional win in program history.
The Commodores will be joined in Palm Beach Gardens by Florida, Notre Dame, Florida State, Purdue, New Mexico, South Florida, Little Rock, Charleston, Indiana, San Diego, Davidson, Loyola (Maryland) and Charleston Southern. Nick Lyerly of Greensboro, Tobias Jonsson of Mercer, Henrik Lilja of Campbell, Ross Funderburke of Furman and Zack Byers of Gardner-Webb are also part of the field competing as individuals.
There are six regionals — three of which have 13 teams and 10 individuals and three which have 14 teams and five individuals. The top five teams (30 total) and the low individual not on an advancing team (six total) from each regional site will advance to play in the championships at Grayhawk Golf Club.
Vandy enters the national postseason ranked No. 3 in the nation by Golfstat and in the Gulfweek Coaches’ Poll.
“Our guys will finish finals this week and then we get to kind of lock back in on the job at hand. The most together teams are the best teams this time of year and this next tournament demands our full attention in every decision we make,” Limbaugh added. “I’m proud of this team and what they’ve accomplished, but I think it’s important we all understand that we still have a lot of work to do and we have to own that – and that has always come back to having the right habits and being able to focus on the right things.”
