Flanagan Will Play in NCAA Austin Regional

The selections for the men's NCAA Division I regional championships were announced Wednesday night, and the University of Minnesota's Angus Flanagan will be playing in Austin, Texas.

Flanagan, a sophomore from Woking England, earned a place in the regional by claiming a share of the Big Ten individual championship in Philadelphia on Sunday. He will be one of five individuals competing at the University of Texas Golf Club, along with 14 teams (5 players per team). That will be one of six regional tournaments played in two weeks (May 13-15). 

There will be five teams advancing from each of the six regional tournaments to the NCAA DI Championships, May 24-29, in Fayetteville, Ark. -- along with one individual not on one of the advancing teams. Basically, the odds are stacked against the players who aren't on a team. You would almost certainly have to finish in the top five individually -- and probably in the top three -- from a field of 75 to make it to Fayetteville.

Several teams with Minnesotans on them will be competiing in the regionals.

Derek Hitchner, the former state Class AA high school champion from Blake, is on the Pepperdine team that is ranked No. 18 in the country by Golfstat.com. Pepperdine will also be competing in Austin, as the No. 3 seeded team there.

Ben Sigel, the former state Class AAA champion from Minnetonka -- and the winner of the 2017 Minnesota Mr. Golf Award -- plays for Kansas, and the Jayhawks are the No. 7 seed in the Stanford Regional, which will be played at Stanford, Golf Course in Stanford,  Calif. The No. 5 seed at Stanford will be Alabama, whose roster includes Frankie Capan. He played high school golf in Arizona and won a state championship there last year, shooting a 59 in the process (he won by 10 strokes). But he spends his summers in Minnesota and is a member at North Oaks. 

Parker Reddig (Shattuck-St. Mary's) is at Florida State, and the Seminoles have been assigned to the Myrtle Beach Regional, which will be played at TPC Myrtle Beach in Murrells Inlet, S.C. They are seeded fifth. The 10th seed at Myrtle Beach is Oregon, which won the NCAA in 2016. The Ducks' 2018-19 roster includes Sam Foust (Edina). 

The women's NCAA Division I regional lineups were announced last week. No Minnesotans will be playing in any of those four tournaments, but South Carolina, a team coached by former Edina star Kalen Anderson (she played on four of the Hornets' state championship teams from 1993 to '97). South Carolina is the No. 3 seed in the Cle Elum Regional, which will be played next week (May 6-8) at the Tumble Creek Club in Cle Elum, Wash. Six teams and three individuals will advance from each of the four women's regionals to the Women's NCAA DI tournament, which will be played May 17-22, also in Fayetteville.