The Monday Meeting that Helped Turn the Tide on Alabama Golf's Season

After a poor finish in the Cabo Collegiate, the team bounced back with a win and now finds itself back at the NCAA Championships for the first time since 2018.

NATHAN J. FISH/THE OKLAHOMAN-USA TODAY NETWORK

Thousands of college students flock to Mexico for spring break trips, enjoying the beaches and sun, but it was far from a vacation for Alabama men's golf when the team played in the Cabo Collegiate early in March. 

It was by far the worst performance of the season for the Crimson Tide. Alabama finished 13th of 15 teams at 42-over-par, 60 strokes behind the winner in Vanderbilt's 18-under-par. 

Even though there was frustration with the way the team performed, senior Canon Claycomb saw that this team could still be something special. 

"When we came back from Cabo, we finished second to last, and we had a meeting that Monday morning and everybody was kind of hitting the panic button," Claycomb recalled. "And I said, ‘We don't need to hit the panic button. We're good enough. We just had a bad week.’ And there was a belief in that room even after finishing second to last that we were still one of the top teams in the country."

Alabama proved it the next week, winning the Linger Longer Invitational in Greensboro, Georgia ahead of teams like Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, Arkansas and Georgia. 

And Alabama has continued to look like one of the best teams in the country over the last few weeks, particularly in postseason. The Crimson Tide is one of the last 30 teams standing in college golf after winning the Normal Regional, picking up the program's first regional win since 2014 and securing a spot at the NCAA Championships for the first time since 2018. 

From the beginning of the season, this team knew what it was like to win. The Crimson Tide opened play with a first-place finish in the Rod Myers invitational at Duke back on Sept. 9. 

Head coach Jay Seawell called it a complete flush of the disappointment of the season before. (Alabama did not win any tournaments during the 2021-22 season and finished dead last in stroke play at the 2022 SEC Championships.) The team was able to put last season in the rearview mirror and start building on the special group it had this year. 

"Cabo was probably the biggest turning point," Seawell said. "We didn't play very well. It's a great tournament, has a great field, and we just didn't play very good golf. And the meeting afterwards was I thought very good because we didn't panic. We always like to talk in truths to our guys and our truths were, ‘We’re very good.' Everything we've done was good, and the guys responded well to it.

"And then the next week we looked the best teams in the country in the eye and beat them in the Linger Longer. So, something happened after that week. We stayed focus on the thing at hand, and then winning the next week definitely gave us the confidence to continue. And we had the lead at SECs in stroke play and played a No. 1 Vanderbilt all the way to the last hole in four of the five matches. I think all of those things helped us do what we did last week.”

At the 2023 SEC Championships, Alabama was in first place after two rounds and finished stroke play in fourth place to advance to match play. The Crimson Tide dropped a closely-contested match with No. 1 Vanderbilt in the opening round of match play.

That loss helped motivate the guys, while also giving them confidence heading into NCAA Tournament play. All five players individually scored  below par as the Crimson Tide finished at 28-under-par to win the regional. 

Seawell has the perfect mix of young and old with this year's team starting at the top with seniors: Claycomb and Thomas Ponder. Both have competed in every tournament for Alabama this season, consistently putting up low scores while displaying leadership for the younger players. Claycomb has two top-five finishes and an individual win, while Ponder has one top-five finish.

The only other player to compete in every tournament is Nick Dunlap. The freshman came out of the gates hot with a third-place finish at the Rod Myers. He also picked up the individual stroke play win at Linger Longer. Seawell said Dunlap has a winning energy about him that was infectious to the whole team. 

Fellow freshman Jonathan Griz continued to improve as the season went on. Seawell called his bogey-free round of 66 in the final round of regional play Griz's "coming out party." He may have been slower to develop than Dunalp, but is peaking at the right time for the Crimson Tide. Claycomb called Dunalp and Griz the best freshman duo in the country. 

"I've never been a part of a team that's been so well put together," Claycomb said. "I hate to give the freshmen a ton of credit because I want to take some of it, but they are a huge part of why this team has been so good because they came in ready to compete, ready to play at the highest level. And us seniors finally realized that we had a chance to be really good, and we took advantage of it this year."

And in between the seniors and freshmen is junior JP Cave, who has been a constant presence in the Alabama lineups for the last three seasons. 

Dunlap feels like the team has gotten better as the season has gone on and credited the closeness of the team, how they've worked and the leadership of the older players. 

"I think we had a little bit of a wake up call in Cabo, and from there, we've worked our tails off and we've seen gradual progress as each week's gone on and growing more trust in each other, which I think allows each of us to play a little bit freer out there," Dunlap said. "Like Canon said, SECs is a big week where we proved to ourselves that we can beat the best team in the country. We've done it and just need to go do it one more time.”

Seawell said this team was able to create its own identity early on instead of focusing on what teams in the past have been like as the guys continue to prepare for nationals, which began this Friday at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona. 

"And I think that's probably the key," Seawell said. "We’ll see how we play this week, but we won't play poorly because the arena is too big. We may play poorly because golf is a hard sport. But this team has come together and has its own identity, It has its own leadership. And it's the first year probably since 2014 that I've not heard one person on the team talk about other teams in the past."

Three rounds of stroke play begin Friday. After the conclusion of the 54 total holes Sunday, the top 15 teams will play one more round of 18 holes on Monday. From that point, the top eight teams will advance to match play. The quarterfinals and semifinals of match play will be Tuesday with the final round of match play conducted Wednesday to determine the national champion. 

In the brief interview with Claycomb, it was clear that he doesn't lack confidence in himself or this team's potential. The team also has great trust in each other. 

The interview was conducted with the 2013 and 2014 NCAA Championship trophies as the backdrop, and it is what the senior can see his team hoisting at Grayhawk by the end of the competition. 

"I have full belief in these guys," Claycomb said. "We’ve prepared like we should. We've done everything the right way so far, and I see no reason why we can’t go to Phoenix and bring home a national championship. When I go to sleep at night and start to dream, that's what I see in my dreams is this team leaving Phoenix with the national championship trophy and coming back to Tuscaloosa."