This weekend, the No. 2 Alabama men’s golf team will attempt to defend their conference title at the SEC championships at Seaside Golf Course in Sea Island, Ga. The Tide won the SEC Championship last season, eventually finishing as national runner-up behind Texas. This season, the team comes into the championships with wins in their last three tournaments, and head coach Jay Seawell said his team doesn’t think about anything that happened last season.
“We don’t sit around and talk about it,” Sewell said. “It was a great memory, but this year has its own weight, and we just worry about today.”
The Tide will face stiff competition at Sea Island. Seven SEC teams are ranked in Golfweek’s Top 25, including No. 11 Florida, No. 13 Georgia and No. 16 Arkansas. Junior Cory Whitsett said he doesn’t think about the competing teams.
“We don’t really worry about it,” Whitsett said. “Our biggest competition is probably ourselves, just doing the things we need to do to win.”
Whitsett, ranked No. 5 in the country, has done a lot of winning recently. First-place finishes in the team’s last two tournaments, the Aggie Invitational and Linger Longer Invitational, earned him Golfweek and SEC Player of the Week honors the past two weeks. Whitsett had a disappointing fall, but he said he has shown a lot of improvement over the season.
“I’ve worked on my mental game, tried to stay sharp and believe in myself in everything I do, every shot I hit on the golf course,” Whitsett said. “That’s really what’s changed everything for me.”
In addition to Whitsett, the team includes two other players ranked in Golfweek’s Top Ten: No. 7 Bobby Wyatt and No. 8 Justin Thomas. Thomas, then a freshman, won the individual medal at the SEC Championship last season, on his way to winning two National Player of the Year awards and consensus first-team All-American honors. However, other than his victory at the Schenkel Invitational, Thomas only has one other top-10 finish this spring.
“Last year was obviously a lot better. I feel like I haven’t had a very solid year,” Thomas said. “I’ve been a lot more inconsistent, but I can’t complain as long as we’re winning tournaments. I don’t care if I finish 50th as long as we get that national championship.”
To prepare for the type of weather they may face at Seaside, the team traveled to Gulf Shores to play at Kiva Dunes Golf Course, a course that features a similar kind of oceanfront environment. Thomas said after a week of preparation, he is ready for the SEC Championship
“I feel real good. We’re all really excited to get there,” Thomas said. “We’re getting down to that crunch time, when you make a great year out of a good year.”
The SEC Championship tees off Friday from Sea Island and continues through the weekend.
