No. 9 Stags Slated to Begin the 2018 National Championships

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The No. 9 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's golf begins the four-day National Championships at the Grandover Resort at Greensboro, N.C. on Tuesday. The Stags will be one of 42 teams in action this week in North Carolina, in a field that includes the top 18 teams in the country and a total of 26 programs in the top-50.

The Stags earned their way into the National Championship with a convincing victory in the SCIAC Championship race. Across seven rounds, CMS 33 strokes ahead of second-place La Verne. The Stags carded three-straight rounds underplay to finish nine-under in the final Tournament and 20 strokes clear of Cal Lutheran for the weekend.

The Stags
One of the biggest differences between SCIAC and NCAA Championship play is that the Stags need to trim their starting line-up down from six players to five. At NCAA Championships each team can play five golfers for each round with the four lowest scores counting toward the team's score for the day. As a results the Stags are brining, Johnny Brandt (CMC), Jonathan Shaw (CMC), Alex Wrenn (CMC), Matt Shuman (CMC), and Austin Long (CMC) to North Carolina to compete for a National Championship. Shuman is coming off a SCIAC Championship where he finished the three-round Tournament at five-under, one stroke behind Jake Hollander (Redlands) for the individual title.

Joining Brandt in the top-10 at the SCIAC Championships were four other Stags. Jonathan Shaw finished the Tournament in a tie fro third-place at even-par, while Alex Wrenn and Ken Kong (CMC) finished in a tie for fifth-place at one-over. Matt Shuman was three shots back of Wrenn and Kong in a tie for 10th-place at four-over. Just outside the top-10 was Austin Long, finishing alone in 14th place at five-over on the week.

The Stags' first tee time on Tuesday morning belongs to Austin Long at 7:30 a.m. ET/4:30 a.m. PT. CMS will tee off every 10 minutes with Brandt last off the tee at 8:10 a.m. ET/5:10 a.m. PT for the Stags. CMS starts Round One off on the 1st hole and will be playing alongside golfers from No. 1 St. Thomas (MN) and Western New England.

The Field
Forty-two of the best Division III men's golf teams will descend on the Grandover Resort at Greensboro, N.C. to compete in the 2018 National Championships. The Stags earned one of 33 Automatic Qualifier into the tournament by way of winning the SCIAC Championship, with nine other at-large selections handed out. There were also six individuals who earned invitations to the tournament. Cade Lawson (Redlands) is the only familiar name on the list of individuals in the field, after his battles with the Stags in the SCIAC play this year.

In addition to the Stags making this year's field, the La Verne Leopards were selected to represent the SCIAC as one of the nine at-large selections to the Tournament. In addition tot La Verne and Cade Lawson, CMS will see some familiar faces. In the middle of March, CMS went to the Jekyll Island Invitational and finished the prestigious tournament in sixth place with a three-day total of 878 (+14). The Stags climbed the leaderboard in that Tournament with back-to-back rounds under par on Days Two and Three.

Below is a list of the teams in the field, sorted by their most recent Golfstat team ranking:

St. Thomas (MN) (1)
Huntingdon (2)
Methodist (3)
Emory (4)
Texas - Tyler (5)
Illinois Wesleyan (6)
Concordia (TX) (7)
Guilford (8)
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (9)
Southwestern (10)
St. John's (MN) (11)
Hope (12)
Greensboro (13)
Washington & Lee (14)
NC Wesleyan (15)
Wittenberg (16)
La Verne (17)
Rhodes (18)
Pacific Lutheran (23)
Hampden-Sydney (25)
Mary Washington (28)
Trinity (CT) (29)
New York University (30)
Franklin & Marshall (35)
Otterbein (41)
Webster (45)
Transylvania (54)
Penn State-Behrend (101)
Nebraska Wesleyan (61)
Western New England (67)
Aurora (70)
Husson (81)
Rosemont (84)
St. John Fisher (107)
Farmingdale State (108)
Lake Forest College (109)
Washington & Jefferson (111)
Penn State - Berks (124)
Johnson & Wales - RI (129)
Goucher (156)
St. Scholastica (159)
Stevenson (169)
Manhattanville College (183)

The Course
This year's National Championships will be played across two courses at the Grandover Resort in Greensboro, N.C. With weather in the forecast, the field will have to not only battle the course, but mother nature as well to get in all 72 holes and compete well in the Championships. Opened in May 1997, the West Course is formed with the naturally rolling terrain and elevation changes found in the Piedmont of North Carolina. A links style layout flows away from the resort for the first 9 holes and returns for the inward nine. The West Course measures 6800 yards from the championship tees.

The East Course was opened a year earlier in March 1996 and was designed by Gary Panks and David Graham. Many of the holes were designed to give a stadium-effect around them. The tree lined fairways provide a seasonal blaze of color offering our guests the feeling of being in a nature preserve in America's heartland of golf.

How to Follow

Check CMSathletics.org and follow @AthleticsCMS on twitter throughout the week for updates on the Stags as they progress at the National Championships.

For in round coverage, click here to follow Golfstat's live scoring.