The Alabama men’s golf team will kick off their 2011 spring season this weekend in the Puerto Rico Classic on the River Course of the Rio Mar Beach Resort.

Alabama is ranked No. 4 in both the Golf World/Nike Coaches’ Poll and the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index. Head coach Jay Seawell is in his ninth season at the Capstone. He has taken the Crimson Tide to the NCAA tournament seven times, advancing to the NCAA championships four times. His 2008 team captured the SEC Championship. Seawell is excited about the upcoming season.

“We had a very successful fall [season],” Seawell said. “We have the talent to contend in the SEC and at the NCAA championships. I’m looking forward to the spring because the spring is the championship season. The fall counts the same as the spring, but you play the SEC tournament in April and you play the NCAA tournament at the end of May and it goes into June.”

Seawell said there were not any major adjustments that were made besides tweaking the roster.

“We are going to start shrinking the team a little bit,” Seawell said. “It’s pretty wide open in the fall and we try to give as many people as possible the opportunity to play. Those opportunities will get a little bit smaller. We have a nine-man squad, but we will be down to about six or seven in the next few weeks because it’s time to get some chemistry. Trust and belief in your teammate is just as important in this sport as it is in football or baseball.”

The Tide has three players ranked in the top 45 of the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, No. 7 Bobby Wyatt, No. 34 Bud Cauley and No. 43 Cory Whitsett. Hunter Hamrick is ranked No. 111.

Wyatt is known for shooting a 57 at the 2010 Alabama Boys State Championship and is the second-ranked freshman in the nation. Cauley is a two-time All-American and a two-time first-team All-SEC selection. Whitsett is a true freshman, and is third on the team with a 72.00 scoring average. Hamrick is an all-American with a 72.85 career scoring average.

“I like my team, but we are very young,” Seawell said. “We have two juniors and three freshmen in the line-up this week at Puerto Rico. We will have four of the top six teams in the country there, so we will get a test early. We will have June weather in February games. We are going to take it one step at a time and I am looking forward to the year.”

With all the post-season success the teams have had, Seawell is staying focused on the task at hand. He said he does not want his team to get complacent with just winning a few tournaments because there is a bigger goal at the end of the season.

“You really need to peak at the right time because golf is such a week-to-week game,” Seawell said. “In 2008, we were the No. 1 ranked team in the country for almost the entire year. We peaked at the SEC tournament, but unfortunately the SEC and NCAA tournaments are about four weeks apart. We got satisfied with the SEC tournament because we hadn’t won one in a while. This year that is still our goal, but we are also going to go focus on that big prize.”