SoCon Men's Golf Championship opening round tee times set

FLORENCE, S.C. - The 74th Southern Conference Men's Golf Championship begins at the Country Club of South Carolina in Florence, S.C.

Chattanooga, Furman, Georgia Southern, Wofford and UNC Greensboro all enter the event with top 100 national rankings. Georgia Southern, the 2006 event champion, is the last school other than UTC to take home a SoCon title.

UNCG has won two events this season, the first time that has happened since 1996-97. The Spartans were in position to possibly win a third last week, but struggled in the final round and finished seventh at the UK Bluegrass Invitational. The Spartans will go off of the No. 10 tee beginning with the 8:50 a.m. grouping.

Chattanooga is the three-time defending champion at the event, as the Mocs edged Georgia Southern by two strokes to claim the 2009 title at the par 72, 7,062-yard course. Chattanooga which enters the tournament ranked No. 34 in the nation by Golfstat, has won one tournament in 2009-10 and returns its top three golfers from last season's title-winning team.

Also participating in the 11-team event are Appalachian State, College of Charleston, Davidson, Elon, Samford and Western Carolina.

The Southern Conference Men's Golf Championship has been played every season since 1933, aside from a four-year hiatus during World War II, and the event boasts past champions such as Arnold Palmer (1948-49), Brad Faxon (1983) and Rhys Davies (2005), a winner on the European PGA Tour last month.

The winner of the SoCon Championship will earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Regional while the individual medalist will also earn an automatic regional qualification.

- UNCG -