MORROW, Ga. – Clayton State men's golf will return to the NCAA Division II Tournament as a team for the first time since the 2013-14 season, and eighth time overall, as the official word came down on Friday, April 26 that they had earned their way into the field of 80 teams.
 
The South/Southeast Regional will be hosted by Rollins and the Greater Orlando Sports Commission from May 9-11 at the Mission Inn Resort and Club in Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida.
 
The Lakers make their return to the postseason following a tremendous regular season that has seen them deliver five top five finishes in nine tournaments. Those have included a 2-of-22 finish at the Bearcat Classic (3/26), third place at the UNG Fall Invitational (10/2) and fourth at both the Hurricane Invitational (2/26) and the 2019 Peach Belt Conference Championships (4/21). The latter was their highest finish since the 2014-15 season.
 
Individually, at Lander, freshman Javier Gonzalez (San Jose del Cabo, Mexico) and junior Nick Woof (Leighton Buzzard, England) earned All-Tournament honors with Gonzalez finishing 3-of-110 while Woof tied for fifth.
 
The most impressive performance came from Woof though as he earned his first All-Tournament recognition at North Georgia during the fall portion of the schedule. That came off of a program record tying round of 64 that saw him finish eight-under with a 207.
 
The latter bested the team record held by professional golfers Will Wilcox and Wade Binfield and led him to a tie for second out of 49 golfers. It also earned him PBC Men's Golfer of the Week with the 64 being the fifth lowest round in PBC history. Additionally senior Andres Caballero (Mexico City, Mexico) has notched a pair of top five finishes and two more Top-10 outings behind a team-best 72.78 stroke average.
 
Clayton State qualified for the field as the sixth best team in the Southeast Region behind No. 10 Lincoln Memorial, No. 11 Young Harris, No. 15 Carson-Newman, No. 14 Limestone and Columbus State. Also making the field in spots No. 7-10 were No. 23 USC Aiken, Queens, Flagler and North Greenville. The latter three did so as automatic qualifiers from the South Atlantic Conference, PBC and Conference Carolinas, respectively.
 
That will not be their only competition as they find themselves in the toughest region in NCAA Division II golf. The other side of that coin sees No. 1 Barry, No. 2 and defending national champion Lynn, No. 3 West Florida, No. 6 Nova Southeastern and No. 7 Florida Southern holding down the top five spots from the South Region.
 
The bottom five aren't any less challenging with No. 8 Florida Tech, No. 17 Saint Leo, No. 19 Rollins, No. 25 Valdosta State and automatic qualifier Albany State coming in No. 6-10. With those numbers, that means the Lakers will face a field that has more than half of the teams in the Busnell Golfweek NCAA Division II Top-25 Coaches Poll, seeing 14 of them with seven of those in the Top-10 and including the three best teams in the country.
 
At a minimum, the top three teams from each regional will advance to the finals to be held May 20-24 and hosted by the Mountain East Conference at The Resort at Glade Springs in Daniels, West Virginia. The remaining eight team berths will be allocated based on the regions represented in the prior year's head-to-head medal play portion of the championships, with the maximum number of teams from a given region capped at seven.
 
The Lakers make their eighth NCAA Tournament appearance in program history having qualified as a team in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2008, 2009 and 2014. Two of those resulted in trips to the national championships during the 1999 (7^th) and 2008 (10^th) campaigns. Additionally, when they haven't made it as a team they have sent an individual to the NCAAs on six different occasions, including two in the past three years.
 
Stay tuned to www.ClaytonStateSports.com for all the details and further developments as Clayton State returns to the NCAA Division II Tournament and looks to carry on an impressive postseason tradition.