INDIANAPOLIS - Five Sunshine State Conference men's golf teams and two individuals are set to compete in the 2024 NCAA Division II South/Southeast Regional. The 2024 event will take place at the Chattahoochee Golf Club in Gainesville, Georgia. The three-day tournament will be hosted by University of North Georgia and take place from May 9-11.
Sunshine State Conference tournament champions Barry University earned automatic qualification into the South/Southeast Regional after winning their third consecutive conference title. Despite being the SSC champions, the Buccaneers are the fourth-highest ranked SSC school coming in at No. 6. The region's top seed is defending national champion Nova Southeastern University. The other SSC schools making the regional are Florida Southern College, Saint Leo University, and University of Tampa.
The two individuals representing the SSC are Lynn University's Joseph Hudak and Palm Beach Atlantic University's Justus Verge.
Last season, the SSC took home both the team and individual national titles. Nova Southeastern won the SSC's first national title since 2019, defeating Oklahoma Christian in the championship round. Palm Beach Atlantic's Andrew Riley won the individual title by two strokes. His win was the SSC's first since Michael VanDerLaan of Florida Southern won the crown in 2019.
From 2012-2019, the SSC won every single team national title. During that span, Nova Southeastern, Barry, and Lynn each won the championship twice, while Saint Leo and Florida Southern each came away victorious once. The SSC has had six individual national champions since 2013.
At a minimum, the top three teams and the top two student-athletes not with a team from each regional will advance to the finals. The finals will take place May 21-25 at the Orange County National Golf Center and Lodge in Winter Garden, Florida The remaining eight team berths will be allocated based on the regions represented in the prior year’s head-to-head medal play portion of the championships, with the maximum number of teams from a given region capped at seven. The finals will be hosted by Rollins College and the Greater Orlando Sports Commission.
Teams and individuals are listed in rank order. Conference automatic qualifiers are indicated in brackets next to the institution's name.
South Region:
1.
Nova Southeastern
2. Lee
3.
Florida Southern
4. West Florida [Gulf South Conference]
5.
Saint Leo
6.
Barry [Sunshine State Conference]
7. Union (Tennessee)
8. Shorter
9.
University of Tampa
10. Miles [Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference]
Individuals:
1. Eric Boutwell, Montevallo
2.
Joseph Hudak, Lynn
3.
Justus Verge, Palm Beach Atlantic
4. Harrison Hughston, Montevallo
More info from the NCAA: 2024 Division II Men's Golf Championship Qualifiers Announced