{"id":229767,"date":"2026-04-13T13:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T13:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/229767\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T13:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T13:55:09","slug":"rattlers-begin-quest-to-repeat-as-swac-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/229767\/","title":{"rendered":"Rattlers Begin Quest to Repeat as SWAC Champions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                    &#13;<br \/>\n                        Story Links&#13;<br \/>\n                        &#13;<\/p>\n<p>                     BIRMINGHAM, Ala. \u2014 Florida A&amp;M University men&#8217;s golf opens defense of its Southwestern Athletic Conference championship Monday morning at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail&#8217;s Oxmoor Valley Ridge Course, where the Rattlers will try to become the first program to claim back-to-back SWAC men&#8217;s golf titles since the championship moved to a 54-hole stroke-play format.<\/p>\n<p>The three-day event, running April 13-15, begins with a 7:30 a.m. CST shotgun start on a Ridge Course layout that stretches 6,815 yards at par 72. Known for dramatic elevation changes, dense tree cover and a signature par-5 third hole whose green is framed by exposed shale rock \u2014 a nod to Birmingham&#8217;s mining heritage \u2014 the course will test every corner of each competitor&#8217;s game.<\/p>\n<p>FAMU brings a five-man lineup seeded first through fifth, headlined by No. 1 seed <a href=\"https:\/\/famuathletics.com\/sports\/mens-golf\/roster\/phalatphon-viboonviriyasakul\/5097\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"5097\" target=\"_blank\">Phalatphon Viboonviriyasakul<\/a>, who tees off at 9:00 a.m. in Group 10. He is joined by <a href=\"https:\/\/famuathletics.com\/sports\/mens-golf\/roster\/sascha-robinson\/5093\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"5093\" target=\"_blank\">Sascha Robinson<\/a> (Seed 2), <a href=\"https:\/\/famuathletics.com\/sports\/mens-golf\/roster\/emilio-garcia\/5086\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"5086\" target=\"_blank\">Emilio Garcia<\/a> (Seed 3), Miguel Illas (Seed 4) and <a href=\"https:\/\/famuathletics.com\/sports\/mens-golf\/roster\/jonathan-scott\/4095\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"4095\" target=\"_blank\">Jonathan Scott<\/a> (Seed 5), giving the Rattlers balanced firepower across every pairing.<\/p>\n<p>The field features 10 groups of four, with players from Jackson State, Southern, Texas Southern, Alabama State, University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Prairie View A&amp;M, Alabama A&amp;M and Florida A&amp;M rotating through Hole 1 tee times between 7:30 and 9:00 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>All 54 holes must be completed to determine a champion, though 36 holes constitute the minimum should weather intervene. The final round on April 15 will be broadcast live on SWAC TV.<\/p>\n<p>For Florida A&amp;M, however, the mission is singular: prove last year&#8217;s breakthrough was no aberration.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; Story Links&#13; &#13; BIRMINGHAM, Ala. \u2014 Florida A&amp;M University men&#8217;s golf opens defense of its Southwestern Athletic&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-229767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}