Watch: Men's Golf Previews NCAA Championships

After a stunning comeback and playoff win to clinch the final spot out of the Salem Regional, men's golf is off to Scottsdale this week to compete in the NCAA Championships. Stroke play begins Friday at Grayhawk Golf Club.

Watch below as Brian Kortan, Sam Bennett, William Paysse and Phichaksn Maichon recap the regional and look ahead to the week in the desert.

Head Coach Brian Kortan

We were a long way back there (at the regional) for a while. So, you know, you never can tell when those things are going to happen, but these guys have a lot of times throughout the last few years found ways to dig in their heels a little bit and accomplish something that few probably thought they could. So…man, it was fun to be there. And it was a pretty good two hours.

I hope a lot (of momentum carries to Arizona), but we're going to a completely different situation. At that golf course, birdies are hard to come by. The regional course,  we were making a lot of birdies. So I anticipate that they'll have some confidence coming off that and and they've been excited to get back there. We've got four guys that have played the rounds there last year. So they're excited to be there. I don't think they're going to rely too much on that original deal. They'll be happy to get there and they'll be ready to get to work. Last year we were there and started off in the afternoon that first round and kind of got punched in the gut real quick. We recovered a little bit and made it interesting to almost get into the 15 (first cut). But we took some body blows early last year and I don't think we'll take those same blows this year if we execute the way we want to. We know what the golf course is going to look like and know the kind of shots it's going to require. So I think there's definitely more good than bad from our experience last year.

Sam Bennett

The night before the final round (at regionals), we had a meeting and we knew we had to go out and do something crazy. We got off to a slow start the last day and then the back nine hit and we all started rolling in some putts and making birdies that gave ourselves a chance to compete and try to win a national championship. There was a lot of red on that scorecard. It was cool seeing the guys fight back. We're all playing for each other and we have a good team chemistry. It was just fun to…I mean, it was the coolest golf experience with a team I've been a part of. Coming up 18 in South Carolina, I was more nervous there than I was on the first tee at Augusta. All I was thinking was this could be my last college golf hole ever, could be my last putt ever. And I was just like, it can't end like this. I put a confident stroke on it and I was able to roll it in. 

We've got a lot of confidence (going into nationals). We need to play like that for four rounds at Grayhawk. We can't start off slow like we've done in the past. We know how Grayhawk plays, how tough it is and what it's gonna throw at us. So I think we're ready to get there and pick apart the course.

William Paysse

(The regionals comeback) was really crazy after the second round. We put ourselves in a pretty tough spot, but, I think it was really cool. We were all just really calm in the moment and never lost any hope or anything. We weren't freaking out, just kind of did our thing and luckily came out on top in the playoff. I didn't have my best week, so I finished first that last round and then just got to watch all the putts go in right after that. And it was it was really cool to see. I think we were we were playing okay all week, we just couldn't get any get any putts to go in and then they just all went in at the same time.

I think playing (Grayhawk) last year really gave us a lot of good experience. We certainly weren't expecting the the course to play like it did last year. So I think going in this year with that experience, knowing what it's going to take to get to match play, I think helps us out a lot…just knowing what the course is going to bring to us really helps. I think last year, just being our first time playing out there since we lost out in '21, a lot of other teams kind of knew what to expect and we were just going in there pretty blind. But we obviously still had a chance to make it. It gives us a lot of confidence just knowing what to expect this year. It's Arizona, you know the weather's going to be good, so I think we can handle the challenge.

Phichaksn Maichon

The craziness of it all, I guess (is what stood out about regionals). I was scrolling through the phone the whole back nine, we were down like 14 through nine. So it was just a miracle that we all came back from it. Good golf can take care of itself, but I'm still trying to wrap it in my head. It's just a story that can never be made up. When the kid from Clemson made it (his 60-foot playoff putt), all I had to do was just laugh at it. And then I was just trying to par, to not lose by two because it's not match play it's stroke play. So if I don't par that putt it would have been over. I was just trying to get it close and hope that we can play another hole, but it was mainly luck that it went in. I mean, it was a perfect speed, but there's nothing I can say…if you put me there to putt 50 more times, I don't know if I could make it one more time. But it was just trust in God and it went in.

Last year (at Grayhawk) we kind of got beat up a little bit. It was the first year there, it was my first year as a freshman, so I kind of got beat up by the course. I didn't know how fast and firm it was. I wasn't really used to that kind of green. It was definitely a harder for me to putt over there. But this year we've kind of got the mojo of the greens and how the course is being played, and so we worked on the stuff that we think should help us on the course--hitting a couple of two irons, a couple more firm putts and the speed control. Overall, you still want to play right in front of you, try to keep it in the fairway and get on the greens as much as you can. Know that par will not kill you at all out there. You're probably making up shots by making pars.