BYU men's golf crash course: Cougs land a high seed in NCAA regionals, explained

In case you've been too distracted by BYU football or basketball these days to take notice, the BYU men's golf team is nationally ranked and teed up to recapture the NCAA regionals for the second straight season. Landing the 4-seed in the Athens region (Georgia, not Greece), the 24th-ranked Cougs approach the regionals with plenty to prove.

"We are defending regional champs," says BYU golf standout Simon Kwan in response to the Cougars' seed. "So we need to go in with that mentality that we are going to win a regional. We have the opportunity to beat the best team in the country, and we are going to do everything we can do to prepare for this opportunity. We are one of the best teams in the country, and we are going to prove it to everyone else.”

With a chance to compete with the best teams in the nation, anything could happen as long as you make it into the field. Now past that threshold, BYU can compete for the crown.

I know hardly anything about golf -- that would be incredibly obvious by taking one look at my swing. It would become even more obvious by glancing at my scorecard; I've never shot below 100 in my life, and my 101 at my home Hobble Creek Golf Course will likely haunt me until my dying breath.

BYU plans to avoid the same type of torment out on the greens later this month.

So here's how it all works.

NCAA golf regionals, explained

The NCAA golf championship is first broken into regionals, with 30 men's teams afforded a chance at the title. Following three rounds of 18-hole stroke play -- meaning scores are tallied by number of strokes, rather than by holes won -- the field will be cut to just 15 teams. Then, one final round of 18-hole stroke play, the top 8 teams will play for the national championship in match play. Match play means players compete against each other for number of holes won, rather than overall score.

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