The Alabama men’s golf team finished third when it hosted the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate and will conclude their fall preseason in Windermere, Fla. as Texas Tech hosts the Isleworth Collegiate Invitational.
Alabama’s own Bud Cauley won the Isleworth last year with a final score of 5-under par, while the team finished fifth behind the eventual national champion, the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
The field for this year’s Isleworth is as strong as ever, including defending champions No. 1 Oklahoma State, the historically strong No. 5 Stanford, the Jerry Pate second place winners No. 2 Florida and No. 6 Georgia, according to the Golfweek/Nike Coaches’ Poll.
“This is a great golf course and one of the best run college tournaments,” head coach Jay Seawell said. “It has the feel of a regular season tournament, with the high caliber teams coming in. It’s a special tournament with a special field, and it can give our guys a championship value experience.”
Just participating in a tournament with the feel of regular season in the fall is great for the program, but that does not mean the team is satisfied with just playing.
“Well, obviously we have high expectations,” Cauley said. “We started with a win, then we struggled mightily in our last two tournaments. It’d be nice to finish with a win.”
Seawell is more focused on performance for this tournament than results.
“I just want us to be mentally sharp and prepared,” he said. “If we do that and we are out there playing our best, everything else will take care of itself.”
This tournament means a lot for the Crimson Tide, as it will be its last NCAA-recognized action until February.
The Tide hopes to improve on some things through this tournament.
“We definitely want to be successful since it’s our last tournament of the fall,” Seawell said. “It would be a great thing to hang our hats on if we perform well. It would give us a great feeling going into our break.”
Despite Seawell’s desire to focus on improvements, Cauley still wants to take home a win.
“I want the W,” Cauley said. “We know we have a very talented team and that we are capable of winning this tournament. We just have to play well enough to do it.”
Seawell has his eye on improvement outside of the tournament as well, especially in practices.
“I just want to improve our mindset,” Seawell said. “I want us to avoid going through the motions every day, so we’re trying to change how we practice. We need to do a better job of practicing game situations. Obviously, some of that can’t be practiced until you’re in the tournament, but we need to do a better job of practicing what we can.”
Seawell stressed being “excellent in our preparation” as they move along on their path to a hopefully strong showing in the post-season.
Cauley has been looking inward as well.
“This has probably been one of my worst ball striking semesters of my career,” Cauley said. “I want to improve on that, and in the winter we have a lot of time off, so I can work on the mechanics of my swing then.”
Seawell hopes a strong performance can be a confidence booster for his team.
“A good performance here can give you the feeling of being the team to beat,” Seawell said. “Hopefully it can give these guys some confidence going into championship season.”
