No. 15 Men’s Golf sets sights on title at NAIA Tournament

The No. 15-ranked UHV men's golf team is no stranger to the stage set for them this week.

The Jaguars will make their fourth consecutive National Championship appearance this week at the 72nd NAIA Men's Golf National Championship at Dalton Golf and Country Club in Dalton, Georgia.

The four-round tournament gets underway on Tuesday with UHV teeing off at 7:40 a.m. central time with the field being cut to the top 15 teams (plus ties) and 6 individuals who have not already made the cut with their teams (plus ties) after Wednesday's second round.

"Expectations are high," said head coach Garrett Adair. "Obviously, we're going in with the goal to win and I think we have the talent to do that. With the new track, it's going to take some time to get used to, but that's why we're going early to get a couple of days of work in and get acclimated. But it's going to be fun. The venue is nice, the facilities are nice. So, we're looking forward to this opportunity."

UHV is coming off its best 54-hole performance of the season, shooting rounds of 286, 284 and 288 in the Red River Athletic Conference Tournament to win by 31 strokes over Our Lady of the Lake.

The team victory was highlighted by freshman Nathan Biais' record-setting performance of 69-67-70—206. His score of 10-under par at Victoria Country Club tied the all-time record low set by Jaxon Langford in 2021 and set a new record low score to par in a conference tournament for the Jaguars. He became the fourth consecutive individual winner for UHV at the conference tournament, as well.

Biais, Enzo Dakiche and Joshua Van Der Wath have each claimed individual victories this season with freshman Hayden Hardwick also taking a T-2 finish in the Texas Wesleyan Spring Invite in the final tournament of the regular season. Those four, along with sophomore Paul Chopin, each finished inside the Top 10 at the RRAC Tournament two weeks ago.

With the finish at the conference tournament, the Jaguars moved up five spots to No. 10 in the rankings on Scoreboard powered by Clippd, which are based solely on statistics at tournaments.

"We still have some potential," Adair said. "We still haven't seen all four or five guys click at the same point. It was nice to see Nathan play well and hopefully he will continue to keep that ball rolling. I mean, he has a lot of confidence right now. I'm looking forward to hopefully having all five click at the same time. We're seeing success from each of them at the end of the year, which is the time you want to click."

Winning the school's first-ever national championship won't come easy, however.

With teams like host and No. 1-ranked Dalton State, defending champion British Columbia and perennial powers like Keiser (Fla.), Ottawa University-Arizona and Texas Wesleyan, the Jaguars understand the slim margin for error this week.

"We've proven we belong all year," Adair said. "It's just about having that belief and going in there with our chest puffed out big and knowing we are a team that belongs here and we have the skill to get it done. It's not going to be easy; Dalton State is a good team, so is Keiser, Texas Wesleyan and so on. We're going to go in there, play our best we can and see where we end up at the end of it."