It was a close call, but CSU men qualify full team for NCAA regionals for third straight year; CU’s Justin Biwer will make his third consecutive trip to regionals
By Gary Baines – 5/1/2024
One week after the Colorado State women’s golf squad was one of the last teams selected for the NCAA regionals, the Ram men followed suit.
On Wednesday on an NCAA Division I men’s golf selection show nationally televised by Golf Channel, the CSU men earned one of the last at-large selections into regionals. Specifically, the Rams were seeded 11th in the 13-team West Lafayette, Ind., Regional, with the two lower seeds in the region being automatic qualifiers by virtue of winning conference titles.
The six men’s DI NCAA regionals all will be played May 13-15, with the top five teams — and low individual not on those teams — from each tournament advancing to the NCAA national championships, set for May 24-29 in Carlsbad, Calif.
It will be the third straight NCAA regional appearance for CSU, which last year parlayed that into the Rams’ first national tournament berth since 2011.
Meanwhile, while the University of Colorado won’t return a full team to regionals after finishing 21st at the NCAA national championships last year, one Buff is headed to regionals on an individual basis. Junior Justin Biwer of San Diego will be making his third regional appearance as he also competed as an individual in 2022. He’ll tee it up in the Austin, Texas Regional.
Vanderbilt — led by Gordon Sargent, the No. 2-ranked amateur in the world — will be the top seed in CSU’s West Lafayette Regional, followed by Arizona, Florida, New Mexico and host Purdue.
Wednesday’s announcement continues a notable stretch for CSU’s Connor Jones, the Westminster resident who earned 2022 CGA men’s Player of the Year honors. Jones placed fifth individually on Sunday at the Mountain West Conference tournament in Creswell, Ore. Two days later in Fort Collins, he and former Ram AJ Ott won a playoff to earn the last spots into U.S. Open final qualifying from a local qualifier at Collindale Golf Course. Then came Wednesday’s confirmation that his final season of college golf will be extended by at least one more tournament.
Jones has won five individual titles as a college player — four at CSU and one at the University of Denver, where he began his college days.
For the complete men’s DI NCAA regional fields, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com