April 17, 2005
FRANKLIN, Tenn. - The UCF men's golf team begins the defense of its Atlantic Sun Conference title Monday at the Roper's Knob Course at the Vanderbilt Legends Club. The conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Regional Tournament will be on the line as the A-Sun teams compete through Wednesday. The 54-hole tournament will be contested with teams playing 18 holes each day.
UCF won the A-Sun championship in Buies Creek, N.C. last year. It was the third A-Sun title for the Golden Knights and the first since 1996. Barry Roof made it a clean sweep for the UCF when he won medalist honors in his final season for the Black and Gold.
This will be the second time this season UCF has seen the 6,990 par 71 Roper's Knob layout. The Golden Knights played in the Mason Rudolph Intercollegiate hosted by Vanderbilt on this course in September. UCF finished 10th of 15 schools while A-Sun foe Georgia State cruised to a 20-shot victory. UCF finished 35 shots behind the Panthers.
Georgia State's Ty Harris shot a final round 7-under-par 64 and won medalist honors at 18-under-par. UCF senior Andreas Hoegberg had one of his best showings of the season when he finished third at 6-under-par.
Hoegberg will be joined this week by junior Sonny Nimkhum and freshmen Preston Brown Giwon Suh and Ben Leong. Leong is the only player in the lineup this week that didn't compete on the Roper's Knob Course in September.
A twist to this year's event will be the appearance of the University of North Florida. The Ospreys, a perennially tough independent Division I golf team, are being allowed to compete for the A-Sun title a year early. UNF is going to join the A-Sun next year when the rest of the school's teams move up from Division II. UNF finished ninth in the Mason Rudolph Intercollegiate in the fall, one shot ahead of UCF.