Elon senior Jimmy Lytle will become the first Phoenix golfer ever to compete in an NCAA Division I regional tournament when he travels to the Gold Mountain Golf Club in Bremerton, Wash., for the May 15-17 event.
The three-time All-Southern Conference star and five other individuals join 27 teams at the regional event hosted by University of Washington. The three 54-hole regional competitions – including the East Regional hosted by University of Tennessee – Chattanooga and the Central Regional hosted by The
Ohio State University – will be conducted to determine the participants who will advance to the NCAA Championship.
The 2008 NCAA Championship will be hosted by Purdue University May 28-31 on the Kampen Course at the Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex in West Lafayette, Indiana. The top 10 teams and the top two individuals at each regional competition will move on to the championship round.
For the 2007-08 season, Lytle tallied 2,311 strokes over 32 rounds for a sizzling 72.22 scoring average – the third-best average in the Southern Conference this year. Last month, he finished in a tie for fourth place at the Southern Conference Championship. This spring, he was named the SoCon Golfer of the Week twice and the SoCon Athlete of the Month once.
Lytle played in all 12 of Elon’s events this past season, amassing 10 top-25 finishes – including eight in the top-10 and six in the top-five – while scoring 13 rounds of par or better and eight rounds in the 60s. Along the way, he earned medalist honors at Francis Marion’s tournament and runner-up accolades at tournaments hosted by Old Dominion, Campbell and USC Aiken.