Dalton State joins elite golf tournament

The Carpet Capital Collegiate Classic and Dalton State College are making history together.

The annual tournament at The Farm Golf Club, one of the most prestigious team events in the country, has invited the Roadrunners to be part of the 2015 field. The Sept. 11-13 event at Rocky Face, Ga., will be the first time that an NAIA team has participated.

"The quick progression of our program has given us the credibility to where we can play in a prestigious event on our home course," Dalton State director of golf Ben Rickett said Friday. "We are thankful for that opportunity to play against the best teams in the nation, regardless of division."

Ben Rickett, the Dalton State director of golf, has accepted an invitation for his team to play in the prestigious Carpet Capital Collegiate tournament

The roster of previous participating teams is filled with eventual national champions, including Stanford, Florida, Georgia and Alabama, as well as other national power programs from the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences. This year's field includes NCAA Division I LSU, Auburn, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee from the SEC; Clemson, Georgia Tech and North Carolina from the ACC; Kennesaw State and North Florida from the Atlantic Sun; South Florida from the American Athletic Conference; and Rickett's alma mater, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

The individual alumni roster is even more impressive with the likes of PGA Tour winners Stewart Cink, Tim Clark, Lucas Glover, Bryce Molder, Bill Haas and Chris Kirk all having won at The Farm.

Jordan Spieth played in 2012 and finished runner-up. The list of participants includes golfers who dominated the 1990s, the 2000s and this decade on the PGA Tour, including Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk, Justin Leonard, David Duval, Bubba Watson, Webb Simpson, Billy Horschel and Matt Kuchar.

Those aren't golfers who played at NAIA schools like Dalton State. But the Roadrunners can boast of a Jack Nicklaus Award winner, Sean Elliott, as a member of their team. The 2015 NAIA national medalist, Elliott almost earned a spot into a PGA Tour event earlier this year.

"We're going to go out and play the course," Rickett said. "The only thing that changes from what we do daily is that we'll be playing against a bunch of future PGA Tour players in this event."

Contact David Uchiyama at duchiyama@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6484. Follow him at twitter.com/UchiyamaCTFP