The Louisiana Ragin Cajuns golf team is in Norman, Oklahoma at the NCAA Regionals looking to be one of the 30 teams to advance to the NCAA Tournament.
Theo Sliman’s team is in a regional for the first time since 2012 when they won just their fourth Sun Belt Championship in school history last week in Madison, Mississippi.
The 14-team field includes the host team in Texas Tech, Oklahoma, LSU, Alabama, Ole Miss, Wake Forest, and more. Out of the 84 total teams, only 30 will advance (five from each regional).
Louisiana has a great roster with Eli Ortego, Charlie Flynn, Jake Marler, Matt Weber, and others representing the university. Four players on this year’s golf team call the state of Louisiana home, which is something that was important to Sliman, who took over the Louisiana golf program in 2008.
His message to his team leading up to this regional is to ‘have fun’ and play with the mentality of ‘why not me?’ and brought up the example of Craig Perks, a professional golfer from New Zealand that won the PLAYERS Championship back in 2022 ranked as the #306 golfer in the world. He used the same phrase after winning that prestigious tournament, and Sliman feels that the Cajuns could benefit from having a similar mentality.
This team has proven that it belongs in the conversation, but can it show the nation why they were put in the conversation to begin with? Those questions will get answered at the Jimmie Austin Golf Club on the campus of Oklahoma beginning today.