SEC Championship Starts Wednesday for Gamecocks at Sea Island

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — South Carolina opens play at the 2021 SEC Men’s Golf Championships (April 21-25) on Wednesday morning at Sea Island Golf Club’s Seaside Course. For the fourth time, the conference meet will feature both stroke play and match play.
 
There will be 54-holes of stroke play to determining an individual SEC Champion with the top-eight teams advancing to match play to determine the team champion. Quarterfinal and semifinal matches will take place Saturday, with the title bout set for Sunday morning live on the SEC Network. Coverage of the semifinal matches on Saturday begins at 4 p.m. ET on SEC Network+.
 
“It’s very unique this week as we’ve played mostly SEC competition the entire year,” said head coach Bill McDonald. “Normally we go into this event it’s the first time we’ve seen some of the teams, but that’s not the case this year. Sea Island, the Seaside Course, is always a great venue for this event. The firmness of the greens and the wind really dictate how this golf course plays. All 15 years I’ve been coaching here this is where we’ve had our championship, and it’s one of the best golf courses in the country.”
 
Carolina will be taking its fall lineup of junior Ryan Hall, super senior Jamie Wilson, super senior Caleb Proveaux, sophomore Jack Wall and senior Jack Parrott. The quintet finished fourth, 11^th and seventh in those three fall tournaments which were all-SEC fields.
 
Wilson, a First Team All-SEC selection in 2020, has the most SEC Championship experience for the Gamecocks making his third appearance this week. He T-16^th (211, +1) as a true freshman in 2017 after shooting 66 (-4) in the final round to propel Carolina to the first ever SEC Match Play.
 
Proveaux made his SEC Championship debut as a junior in 2019. He led the team into match play with a T-9^th finish in stroke play, shooting 208 (-2).
 
The Gamecocks have advanced to SEC Match Play twice in the three seasons since the new format. Carolina fell to No. 6 Florida 3-2 in 2017 and 4-1 to No. 16 Auburn in 2019 in the quarterfinals of match play.
 
Hall will be one of the favorites this week to contend for medalist honors in the stroke play portion of the tournament. The junior from Knoxville, Tenn. has had a standout 2020-21 season. He’s the top-ranked player in the SEC and is No. 3 in the nation in the Golfstat Player Rankings. Hall has finished in the top-20 in all eight starts with a career-best five top 10s and three top-fives. He recently notched his second career win at the Augusta Haskins Award Invitational on Easter Sunday.
 
The three-year starter’s 69.97 scoring average this season is third nationally. He’s shot par or better in 20 times in 24 outings. Of the player’s with 24 rounds player, Hall leads the country with eight eagles and ranks second with 98 birdies behind only Oklahoma State’s Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra (106). Hall, who has played the course several times for the Jones Cup and other amateur events, will be making his SEC debut this week in Sea Island. He was of 15 players named to the Haskins Award Watch List back in March.
 
“The course, if it’s not windy, is very scoreable and you can make a lot of birdies,” said Hall. “If you put the ball in play every hole, you’re going to have a lot of chances. On the flipside if it gets windy, it can get really weird and the course starts playing really tough and you have 30-feet for birdie all day. We’re going down there expecting different types of conditions, expecting for the wind to maybe not blow or blow and the wind to change.”  

Carolina will be paired with Ole Miss and Mississippi State for the opening round of stroke play on Wednesday. The Gamecocks will go off the backside at hole 10 with Parrott leading things off at 8:50 a.m. ET. 
 
ABOUT THE COURSE
Rated No. 1 in the U.S. among the “World’s 50 Best Golf Hotels” by Golf Digest Index, Sea Island Golf Club offers three exceptional 18-hole championship courses. The Seaside Course, home to the PGA TOUR’s RSM Classic, is a links course graced by majestic ocean vistas in the tradition of St. Andrews.
 
Seaside was totally reconfigured by Tom Fazio and reopened in October 1999. The new Seaside Course is the brilliant blending of Colt & Allison’s original nine-hole Seaside and Joe Lee’s Marshside nine into one seamless, contemporary 18-hole golf course. Tidal creeks, dunes, saltmarshes and St. Simons Sound frame the course which plays fast, firm and fun in the tradition of legendary Scottish links.
 
The course will play a par-70 at 7,005 yards.

TOURNAMENT HISTORY
In 13 SEC Championship appearances under head coach Bill McDonald dating back to 2007, Carolina has finished in the top-five seven times with three runner-up finishes. Three-time All-American Matt NeSmith became the Gamecocks’ third all-time SEC Individual Champion after earning medalist honors in 2015, helping the team to a T-2nd finish. The four-year standout shot a program-record 196 en route to the win.
 
2021 SEC Men’s Golf Championship Stroke Play Gamecock Lineup
1. Ryan Hall
2. Jamie Wilson  
3. Caleb Proveaux
4. Jack Wall  
5. Jack Parrott  
SUB. Nick Mayfield
 
2021 SEC Men’s Golf Championship Field
1. No. 37 Alabama
2. No. 22 Arkansas
3. No. 14 Auburn
4. No. 17 Florida
5. No. 10 Georgia
6. No. 68 Kentucky
7. No. 23 LSU
8. No. 44 Mississippi State
9. No. 49 Missouri
10. No. 40 Ole Miss
11. No. 48 South Carolina  
12. No. 19 Tennessee
13. No. 11 Texas A&M  
14.  No. 15 Vanderbilt
 
*Rankings via Golfstat as of 4/13/21
 
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