Record-setting Albin Bergstrom leads Bulls against 30-team field at Grayhawk Golf Club
TAMPA, FLA., MAY 26, 2022 – The USF men’s golf team will be the only American Athletic Conference representative in Arizona when the Bulls take on the qualifiers from six regional sites in the 2022 NCAA Men’s Golf Championship May 27 through June 1 at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The Bulls will face a 30-team field and six individual qualifiers on the par 70, 7,289-yard course with stroke play running Friday-Monday and match-play finals taking place Tuesday-Wednesday. Three days of stroke play over 54 holes will determine the top 15 teams and nine individuals not on those teams that will advance to Monday’s final 18 holes. The 72-hole individual champion will be determined Monday, while eight teams will advance to the final two days of a match-play tournament to determine the team national champion.
The Bulls are seeded 23rd in the championship tournament and will tee off in Friday’s morning wave starting at 7:05 a.m. (MT) off the 10th tee in pairings with No. 22-seed East Tennessee State and No. 24-seed Ohio State. The Bulls will switch to the afternoon wave on Saturday, teeing off starting at 12:25 p.m. off the first tee.
The field features 20 of the top 25 ranked teams in the nation, including No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 2 Oklahoma State, No. 3 Vanderbilt (the winner of the Palm Beach Gardens Regional), No. 4 Arizona State, No. 5 North Carolina, No. 6 Pepperdine, No. 7 Texas, No. 8 Texas Tech and No. 10 Florida, which are seeded 1-9 in the championship tournament. Washington, which is ranked No. 9 but failed to qualify for the tournament, has the No. 1 seeded individual entry in RJ Manke.
The Bulls will be making their fourth NCAA Championship appearance and third in the last eight years under head coach Steve Bradley. It will be the Bulls’ first appearance since 2016. USF reached the match-play finals in 2015 before finishing sixth for the top placing in program history.
USF used a total team effort to advance out of the Palm Beach Gardens Regional with a fourth-place finish. Sophomore Sam Nicholson (Atlantic Beach, Fla.) paced the Bulls finishing in a tie for sixth at -3 after an opening-round 68. The Bulls used a counting round from all five golfers in the regional as 2022 AAC Golfer of the Year Albin Bergstrom (Falsterbo, Sweden) battled through his first off tournament of the season and finished tied for 45th at +12. Bergstrom had posted a USF record 30 rounds of par or better and eight top 10 finishes on the year entering the regional.
Junior Luke Gifford (Boca Raton, Fla.), a 2021 All-AAC selection, posted a one-under par 71 in the regionals final round to lead the Bulls and posted a tie for 13th at +1 for the tournament. AAC Tournament runner-up Run Youprayong (Bangkok, Thailand) finished tied for 30th at +8 and freshman Shubham Jaglan (Delhi, India) finished tied for 48th at +14 after his opening round 74 helped the team score.
Junior Ian Peng (Chang Hua, Taiwan) will also join the Bulls line-up, as he did at the regional, and Bradley will determine the five Bulls that will take the course prior to Friday morning’s first round.
The Bulls enter the week ranked No. 31 by Golfstat and Bergstrom stands No. 27 in the individual rankings with his season stroke average of 69.89 on pace to break his own USF season record.
NOTABLE
• Bergstrom finished the regular season ranked No. 27 in the nation on Golfstat, after reaching as high as No. 4, making him the second-highest ranked player in the state of Florida and the highest in the AAC by 18 spots.
• Bergstrom set a program record reaching 86 rounds of par or better on his career this season and his current scoring average of 69.83 on the year over 12 tournaments and 36 rounds, including 19 rounds in the 60’s, is on pace to break his own program record for lowest season scoring average (70.0).
• The 2019 AAC Freshman of the Year, Bergstrom made his third all-conference team appearance.
• Bergstrom joined Claudio Correa (2018, AAC), Aksel Olsen (2016, AAC), Chase Koepka (2013, Big East) and Jim Fee (1985, Conference USA) among the Bulls’ previous conference player of the year honorees.
• Run Youprayong fired a 5-under par 67 in the final round of the AAC Championship to post an 11-under total of 205 to tie for second with rounds of 71, 67 and 67.
• Youprayong earned his first all-conference team selection after finishing second on the USF team with a 71.86 stroke average, 17 rounds of par or better on the year and five top 25 finishes.
• Bergstrom currently has the Bulls’ best-ever career scoring average (70.39), more than a stroke better than Chase Koepka’s previous record mark of 71.53.
• Bergstrom also owns USF career records for scoring average (70.39), tournament low round (63, 2019-20), tournament low round to par (-9, 2019-20), tournament low 36-hole total (133, -11, 2018-19), and is second in wins (3) and low 54-hole total (201, -11, 2018-19).
About USF Men’s Golf
USF men’s golf program has captured 18 conference titles, including in 2021, and have seen players earn 19 All-America honors. The Bulls have won five American Athletic Conference Tournament championships in wire-to-wire fashion, winning four-consecutive from 2015-18. The Bulls have had four individual conference champions, including Albin Bergstrom in 2021, and have earned nine straight NCAA Regional appearances and four NCAA Championship berths, including posting a 6th place finish in NCAA Championship match-play in 2015. USF is led by Steve Bradley, who has been named American Athletic Conference Coach of the Year five times since taking over the program in 2014. The Bulls have posted 20 tournament wins under Bradley entering the 2021-22 season, by far the most under any coach in program history.
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