Yale GC hosting its sixth NCAA regional
The Yale men’s golf team will hope home course advantage really comes into play at the NCAA Division I East Regional.
The Yale Golf Course will host the Division I East Regional for the sixth time and the first time since 2015. The 54-hole event will be held Monday through Wednesday, featuring 14 teams.
The Bulldogs earned a bid to the regional thanks to winning the Ivy League championship by five strokes over Columbia last month. Yale is the No. 13 seed.
“This is a great opportunity for us,” Yale men’s golf coach Colin Sheehan said. “I feel we have a puncher’s chance to go (to the championship finals). This isn’t like any normal home venue. It is a tough course to figure out.”
The top five teams after Wednesday’s final round will advance to the NCAA Division I men’s golf championships, which will be held at Grayhawk GC in Scottsdale, Arizona, May 27-June 4.
Yale GC previously hosted the regional in 1991, ’95, 2004, ’10 and ’15. This will be the fourth time the Yale golf team has qualified for the regional, but the first since 2004.
Peter Palacios, the general manager at Yale GC, said the course will play between 6,450 and 6,550 yards daily.
“In conjunction with our severe elevation changes, YGC offers various options within the pin and tee location that can make every hole play drastically different from day-to-day,” Palacios said. “Mother Nature can also play a critical factor on maneuvering throughout the course, specifically if winds pick up.”
North Carolina is the top seed in this region and leads four teams from the ACC: Wake Forest, the ACC tournament champion, is seeded third, followed by N.C. State at 5 and Virginia at 10.
Texas Tech and Illinois are the No. 2 and 4 seeds, respectively. There are also seven league tournament champions in the field. In addition to Wake Forest and Yale are: Illinois (Big 10), No. 6 Charlotte (Conference USA), No. 7 North Florida (Atlantic Sun), No. 12 Seton Hall (Big East) and No. 14 Sacred Heart (NEC).
“The course has blind shots and quirky bounces. The greens are old-fashioned. They’ve got a lot of small undulations and are tricky to read,” Sheehan said. “The course takes a little bit of getting used to. It’s not something you can easily figure out in one practice round.”
Yale’s Ben Carpenter, a freshman from Darien, was the Ivy Tournament medalist. Through 24 rounds, he has averaged a 74.22 score for the Bulldogs, which also includes the fall season.
Sheehan, named the Ivy League Coach of the Year, acknowledged the efforts of former Yale deputy director of athletics Wayne Dean for helping bring the regional back to Yale GC. Dean retired in the summer of 2020 and died just a few months later.
“A lot of behind-the-scenes work had to be done with the application process (with the NCAA). These things just don’t happen,” Sheehan said.
Admission to the regional is free, but there will be no spectator parking on site. All spectators will need to park at the Yale Bowl and catch the shuttles, which will run from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday.
Five individuals are also competing with the top finisher advancing to the national championship meet. UConn’s Caleb Manuel, who shared medalist laurels at the Big East tournament, is among the five competing.