The golf season starts later this week, and Alabama’s men’s team comes into it ranked No. 5 in the country.

After coming so close in 2012 to the school’s first national championship, the Crimson Tide is back and returning its top three players from last year: juniors Bobby Wyatt and Corey Whitsett and Sophomore Justin Thomas. The Tide is relatively young, returning seven of the eight members from last year’s team and adding three freshmen to this year’s squad. Alabama had only one senior last year and has two this season.

“We are still fairly young,” head coach Jay Seawell said. “We have a junior, sophomore and a junior but you would never know it by their play of course and they are our three top guys.”

As only a freshman last year, Thomas was the named national player of the year, and as only sophomores last season Whitsett and Wyatt were both named second team all-Americans by Golfweek.

For veterans and new faces alike, the top priority for the Tide is to improve daily.

“Most important thing is worry about each day and try to get better each day,” Thomas said.

“You have to train yourself just to think about today because it’s the most important thing that will help us get better today,” Seawell said.

The Tide still has two more spots left in its top five and Seawell said at this point, the competition for them is wide open.

“We’re still thinking about who will be the 4 and 5,” Seawell said. “It could be a redshirt freshman, a senior, a junior and another senior.”

One of the players competing the spots is senior Scott Strohmeyer, who Seawell said has experience after playing in the national championship match against the Texas Longhorns last season.

Alabama has three true freshmen who have joined the team this year: Dru Love, Robby Prater and William Sellers. Seawell said that the freshmen are currently in a process that involves working hard and getting better every single day.

“Our freshmen are in what I like to call a development,” Seawell said. “More than likely they’re going to have a hard time getting in during the spring, but they are doing a good job of fitting in and doing the right things.”

Seawell is ready for the season to start and said even though they are a young team, their experience level and knowledge of the game are high.

“Technically we’re still young,” Seawell said. “But in golf wisdom and in golf years and golf experience we are pretty experienced so I’m really excited for the year to start.”

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