The Panthers are one of 17 teams competing in the Callaway Gardens Intercollegiate at the Mountain View course.
The two-day tournament will be held Saturday and Sunday, and it features many of the top Division III teams in the country.
Among the participants are Oglethorpe, which won a national championship last year, and Methodist, an 11-time national champion.
“This is a huge tournament. This is one of the big ones of the year,” LaGrange College coach Lee Richter said. “We can really help ourselves if we can play well.”
The Panthers, after a strong fall season, finished fourth in the Pine Needles Intercollegiate last week in a tournament that was limited to one round because of bad weather.
The Panthers were ranked 19th before the Pine Needles tournament, and now they’re 22nd.
With a strong showing this weekend, the Panthers would likely move up several spots in the rankings.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Richter said. “This one and Jekyll Island (in May) are huge.”
The Panthers have two ways to make it to the national championship.
They can qualify by winning the USA South tournament, or they can get an at-large bid.
“I told our guys we need to get ranked as high as we can in case we don’t win the conference,” Richter said. “That’s the goal.”
The Panthers are led by sophomore Cory Howard, who is the country’s fourth-ranked Division III player after climbing as high as third before the Pine Needles tournament.
Howard won the prestigious Golfweek Fall Invitational in October, and he also had finishes of second and fifth during the fall season.
“Our goal, number one, is to get a bid to the national championship as a team,” Richter said. “Secondly, if the team can’t get in, Cory can go.”
If the Panthers do make it back to the national championship, it will mark the sixth time in seven years they’ve reached the big stage.
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