No. 12 Illinois Set for NCAA Athens Regional

ATHENS, Ga. – The Fighting Illini males’s golf program’s hunt for a nationwide title will start on the NCAA Athens Regional on the University of Georgia Golf Course, the place the Orange and Blue will matchup with 13 packages and 10 people, May 18-20, competing for a spot within the subject on the 2026 NCAA Championship.

Illinois – No. 12 within the NCAA Division I group rankings – tees off Monday to start three days of competitors. The Fighting Illini are making their 18th consecutive NCAA Regional look and wish to advance to the NCAA Championship spherical for the seventeenth time within the final 18 seasons. 

THE SETTING

The 2026 NCAA Athens Regional is hosted by the Georgia Bulldogs on the University of Georgia Golf Course in Athens, Ga. Located south of the Georgia campus, the UGA Golf Course is extensively considered top-of-the-line college programs within the United States. In 2022 it was rated because the No. 1 College Course within the nation by Golflink and Golf Advisor, and in 2024 it was tabbed because the No. 5 Public Course within the state of Georgia by GolfGo. 

The course, designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr., opened in 1968, and has obtained a number of renovations and upgrades over time. In May 2006, the greens and the greens complicated had been utterly renovated by Love Golf Design of St. Simons Island. The new inexperienced design introduced the course as much as the championship requirements. The greens are very attribute of a Jones course and the renovation included 21 new tees, making the course extra versatile for each amateurs and professionals.

Over its historical past, the UGA Golf Course hosted numerous totally different collegiate tournaments together with the annual Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic, the lads’s and girls’s SEC Championships, males’s and girls’s NCAA Regionals, in addition to the ladies’s collegiate nationwide championships on 5 events – the 1971 Division of Girls’ and Women’s Sports (DGWS) Intercollegiate Championships, the 1981 Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) Championships, and the 1983, 1993 and 2013 NCAA Championships.

TOURNAMENT FORMAT

The 54-hole match might be performed over three days, Monday-Wednesday, with 18 holes slated for every day.  The low 4 scores will depend in the direction of the group rating in every spherical, with the highest 5 groups, and the low particular person not on a type of groups, advancing to the NCAA Championship. 

THE FIELD

The Fighting Illini enter the postseason because the No. 2 seed on the Athens Regional in a powerful subject that features 11 of 13 packages ranked contained in the top-65 of the newest NCAA Division I group rankings. In addition to the No. 12-ranked and second-seeded Illini, the sphere will characteristic No. 1 Auburn, No. 13 Vanderbilt, No. 24 BYU, and  host and No. 26-ranked Georgia to spherical out the top-five seeds. Louisville (36), Kansas (37), Big Ten foe Northwestern (50), College of Charleston (51) and Rice (62) are seeded sixth by tenth, respectively, adopted by Southern Miss (63), Ivy League champion Harvard (124) and NEC Champion Howard (190) to spherical out the 13-team subject vying for 5 bids to the NCAA Championship, May 29 – June 3 in Carlsbad, Calif., at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa. 

The 10 Individual qualifiers battling for a spot on the NCAA Championship are: Louisiana’s Malan Potgieter (54), South Alabama’s Hugo Thyr (116), SBC Champion Max Bengtsson (161) and teammate Drew Sykes (175) of Coastal Carolina, UAB’s Erik Olin (185), Stetson’s Matthis Lefevre (188), Andrew Ferworrn (207) of North Alabama, Shaun Cook of Kennesaw State (233), plus MAAC Champion Rasmus Ditzinger (312) of Fairfield and SWAC Champion Vincente Rodriguez (1419) of Alabama A&M. 

FIGHTING ILLINI LINEUP

No. 1: Ryan Voois

No. 2: Max Herendeen

No. 3: Freddie Turnell

No. 4: Dane Huddleston

No. 5: Trey Marrion

Alternate: Jake Birdwell

ILLINI HISTORY AT THE NCAA REGIONALS

The 2026 NCAA Athens Regional marks the twenty fourth regional look for the Fighting Illini since 1989, and the twenty first beneath the steering of head coach Mike Small (since 2000-01). Small has now led this system to 18 consecutive regional berths relationship again to 2008. 

Small’s groups have skilled nice success within the regional spherical, having superior to the NCAA Championship in 18 of his earlier 20 regional berths, together with a stretch of 13 straight between 2008 and 2021. After narrowly lacking out on advancing in 2022 with a sixth-place end on the NCAA New Haven Regional, the Illini returned to the NCAA Championship in every of the final three seasons, with a runner-up end on the NCAA Bath Regional in 2023 and back-to-back group titles on the 2024 NCAA Stanford Regional and 2025 NCAA Urbana Regional. 

Illinois’ seven regional title beneath head coach Mike Small‘s steering rank because the second-most in NCAA historical past – tied with former Clemson head coach Larry Penley – only one off the lead shared by Texas’ John Fields and Oklahoma State’s Alan Bratton. 

Prior to Urbana in 2025 and Stanford in 2024, the Illini’s most up-to-date regional title got here in 2019 at Myrtle Beach. The Illini claimed 4 consecutive regional titles in 2013 (Fayetteville), 2014 (Sugar Grove), 2015 (Noblesville), and 2016 (Kohler), the longest streak in NCAA historical past previous to Oklahoma State’s run of six consecutive from 2016-22. 

Individually, 5 totally different Illini have captured six medalist finishes at regionals, following Max Herendeen’s victory at Stanford in 2024. Michael Feagles (2019 Myrtle Beach), Nick Hardy (2017 West Lafayette), Brian Campbell (2015 Noblesville and 2014 Sugar Grove), and Luke Guthrie (2011 Central) all took house regional medalist honors throughout their collegiate careers. 

Senior Ryan Voois and junior Max Herendeen will every begin their third regional tournaments. Voois was the group’s alternate competitor as freshman all through the 2023 postseason, together with on the Bath Regional. He completed T10 at Stanford in 2024, and was T2 final yr when the Illini hosted in Urbana. Herendeen took house medalist honors at Stanford in his first style of NCAA postseason motion, and final yr posted a T11 end. 

Sophomores Trey Marrion and Jake Birdwell are making their second postseason runs with the Illini. Last yr as a freshman, Birdwell completed T51. Marrion started because the Illini’s alternate earlier than enjoying Rounds 2 and three within the lineup to assist the Orange and Blue share the group title with Oklahoma State. 

Newcomers Dane Huddleston and Freddie Turnell will compete within the regional rounds for the second time of their careers, however their first as Illini. Huddleston, as a sophomore at Utah Valley in 2025, completed T5 as a person qualifier on the NCAA Reno Regional and missed advancing to the NCAA Championship by only one stroke. Turnell was slotted into the lineup for Rounds 2 and three as a freshman at Little Rock final yr within the NCAA Auburn Regional.  

LIVE SCORING

Live scoring for the NCAA Athens Regional might be accessible on Clippd Scoreboard. Following every day of competitors, a recap and outcomes might be posted on FightingIllini.com.

STREAMING COVERAGE

For the primary time, streaming protection of every of the six NCAA Regionals might be accessible (through subscription) at BabygrandeGolf.com. 

UP NEXT

The low 5 groups and low particular person not on a qualifying group from every of the six NCAA regional websites will advance to compete on the NCAA Championship on the North Course at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California, May 29 – June 3. Illinois enters regionals in quest of this system’s seventeenth NCAA Championship berth within the final 18 tournaments relationship again to 2008, the nineteenth beneath Small’s steering since 2001, and the thirty second in program historical past, total.