The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s golf team will travel to Bryan, Texas, to begin play May 18 in one of the six regional tournaments that open NCAA Division I postseason competition.
The Mocs, who won the Southern Conference tournament last week for the program’s first league championship since 2013 but sixth overall, are seeded 11th in the 14-team regional, which includes third-seeded Tennessee.
The Volunteers advanced to the NCAA postseason for the eighth consecutive year despite finishing 13th in stroke play at the Southeastern Conference tournament last month, leaving them short of the eight-team match play portion of that event. The Texas Longhorns — who reached the SEC semifinals before losing to Florida, which wound up second to Ole Miss — are seeded No. 1 for the Bryan Regional at Traditions Club, the home course for fifth-seeded Texas A&M, the third SEC program in the field.
“We were excited for the opportunity, no matter where it was going to be,” Mocs coach Blaine Woodruff said in a UTC release after the team held an NCAA selection show watch party Wednesday at Chattanooga Golf & Country Club.
“But I think it’s a good spot for us, having been there in 2022 with Pepperdine. The golf course is hard. You have to drive it straight. The wind can blow a little bit. There’s actually some similarities to the Honors (Course in Ooltewah). The greens are firm, and you have to be pretty specific with your landing spots. I think it’s a great spot for us, and we’re excited for the opportunity to go and compete and see what happens.”
Woodruff is in his fourth season as UTC’s head coach. He was the associate head coach at Pepperdine from 2018-22, a stretch that included Pepperdine winning the 2021 national championship, after one season as an assistant at Wisconsin.
This is the third time in four years the Mocs have earned a team berth in an NCAA regional — they did have an individual qualifier in 2025 with Camden Breidich, now a junior who helped UTC to this year’s SoCon title while tying for fifth at the league tourney — and their 11th overall.
The top five teams in the 54-hole regional (and the highest-finishing individual on a team not advancing) will qualify for the NCAA championship tournament that begins May 29 in Carlsbad, California. The Mocs have reached that phase of competition as a team three times, in 2009, 2012 and 2023.
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Softball update
The start of the eight-team SoCon softball tournament, which is being held at Chattanooga’s Frost Stadium, has been pushed back to Thursday after inclement weather led to the postponement of play Wednesday, when four games were originally set to take place.
(READ MORE: Mocs softball team ready to host SoCon tourney)
Fifth-seeded UTC (22-27-1) and eighth-seeded Furman (13-39) are now set to open the event at 10 a.m. Thursday, with the winner facing fourth-seeded Wofford (33-17) at 4 p.m. The second game of the day, between sixth-seeded East Tennessee State University (21-28) and seventh-seeded Mercer (20-29), is set for 1 p.m., with the winner facing third-seeded Western Carolina (33-22) at 7.
The losing teams in the UTC-Furman and ETSU-Mercer matchups are eliminated from the tournament, but the bracket has a double-elimination format thereafter, including the championship round that is set for Sunday.
Regular-season champion UNC Greensboro (39-17), which went 17-4 in league play and, No. 2 seed Samford (26-29) have byes into the semifinals of the winners bracket, with those games currently set for Friday.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.