Kristjansson begins play Friday morning at 9 a.m., at Concession Golf Club

BRADENTON, Fla. (May 28, 2015) – ETSU’s Gudmundur Kristjansson (Reykjavik, Iceland) begins his run for an NCAA Championship on Friday morning as the Buccaneer golfer tees off at 9 a.m., from Concession Golf Club. 

HOW KRISTJANSSON GOT HERE

Kristjansson qualified for the NCAA Championship after finishing sixth at the San Diego Regional, which was held May 14-16 at The Farms Golf Club. 

The Buccaneer junior advanced to Nationals after being the top individual from a non-advancing team as Kristjansson carded a 3-under-par 213. 

Kristjansson totaled 11 birdies and 35 pars in the 54-hole tournament. Five of the birdies came in the opening round, putting Kristjansson tied atop the leaderboard at 3-under 69 following 18 holes of play. 

This season, Kristjansson earned a pair of medalist honors as he won his first collegiate tournament at the Seminole Intercollegiate (March 13-15) and tied for the win at The Greenbrier Collegiate Invitational (April 13-14). 

Kristjansson has compiled a scoring average of 73.52 in 11 tournaments for the Blue and Gold in 2014-15, while scoring in the 60s six times and finishing par or better nine times. His lowest round came in the opening round of the Seminole Intercollegiate as Kristjansson tied ETSU’s single-round record with a 9-under 63, while it also marked the course record at Southwood Golf Club. Kristjansson won the tournament with a 54-hole score of 17-under-par 199, becoming just the third Buccaneer golfer to finish below 200. 

ABOUT THE TOURNAMENT

Championship play will consist of three days of stroke play on Friday thru Sunday (54 holes), after which the top 15 teams and nine individuals not on an advancing team advance to Monday’s final round where the 72-hole individual champion will be crowned. 

The first three rounds of stroke play will begin at 7 a.m., while Monday’s final round will get underway approximately at 11:30 a.m. The Golf Channel will provide live coverage of Monday’s final round beginning at 4 p.m. 

Stanford’s Cameron Wilson was the individual medalist in 2014. 

Kristjansson is the first Buccaneer men’s golfer to advance to the NCAA Championship since Rhys Enoch qualified in 2010. 

THE FIELD

The 30 teams that advanced to the NCAA Championship include Arizona State, Auburn, Charlotte, Clemson, Duke, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Houston, Illinois, LSU, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oregon, San Diego State, South Carolina, South Florida, SMU, Stanford, Texas, TCU, Texas Tech, UAB, UCLA, UNLV, USC, Vanderbilt, Virginia, and Washington. 

Individually, Kristjansson will be joined by Colorado’s David Oraee, Louisville’s Robin-Sciot Sigrist, Michigan’s Kyle Mueller, Troy’s Tolver Dozier, and Western Carolina’s J.T. Poston. 

Kristjansson is grouped with Oraee and Dozier and tee off Friday at 9 a.m., from the No. 1 tee box, while the threesome tee off from No. 10 on Saturday at 2:20 p.m. 

COVERAGE

Live scoring from the NCAA Championship will be available on Golfstat.com, and ETSUBucs.com will provide complete coverage following each round.  

Monday’s final round will be televised on The Golf Channel starting at 4 p.m. 

Twitter updates will be available by following @ETSUAthletics as well using the hash tag #ETSUMGolf.  

TEXTCASTER

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For more information on Buccaneer men’s golf, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the men’s golf page.