Mizzou men’s golf prepares for second straight trip to the NCAA Tournament

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Mizzou men's golf team is headed to the 2023 NCAA Championship regional round in Morgan, Hill California, marking the program's second-straight regional appearance.

The Tigers are set to leave for California on Thursday and will enter the regional as the No. 7 seed on Monday. Head coach Mark Hankins says his message to the team is, "we just have to keep our head down and do the best we can on this golf course and that should be enough to be in contention and possibly go on."

Watch the full interview with Hankins below.

"Every tournament matters so much and if you have one bad tournament it can knock you down 20-30 spots in the rankings," Hankins said. "I thought we did well overall as a team and had lots of different contributions from lots of guys to get where we are today."

Pepperdine is the top seed in the region and other teams include: Florida State, Mississippi State, Arizona, Louisville, Baylor, BYU, NC State, California, Charlotte, Grand Canyon and Northern Colorado.

This marks Mizzou's 16th appearance in the regional round of the NCAA Championship. Last season, Mizzou placed 10th in the regional rounds in its first trip to the championship in four seasons.

In the SEC Championship, the group took a quarterfinal loss to No. 15 Texas A&M. With a lot of young talent on the team, one of the group's leaders senior Charlie Crockett is looking to help his team get into the top five.

"Mental is what golf is at this level," Crockett said. "You have to be mentally tough, we have long days sometimes and that's a test of it. Preparation is how you become mentally ready for a tournament.

The full interviews with Crockett and other golfers can be viewed below.