North Florida's Hayt Invitational, Players Championship building a strong relationship

The oldest college invitational golf tournament on the First Coast will spill over into the week of the PGA Tour's gold standard event.

That's just fine with all concerned. Indeed, The Hayt, hosted by the University of North Florida since 1992 and held at the Sawgrass Country Club since 2000, may now have found a home in early March the weekend before the 50th Players Championship, held across A1A at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.

"There's no question that the goal moving forward is to build a relationship with The Players that helps our program," said UNF coach Scott Schroeder, whose event has been held at different times from February to April. "Hopefully the PGA Tour sees our event as an asset. They've been very supportive."

The field for The Hayt, named for UNF booster John Hayt, is as deep as it's been in recent years. Five teams that are among the top 25 in the NCAA golf coaches poll will be at Sawgrass, No. 2 North Carolina, No. 12 Virginia, No. 21 Alabama, No. 23 Duke and the host Ospreys, ranked No. 24.

Also playing are Jacksonville, Ohio State, UCF, South Florida, Charlotte, Liberty, Louisville, Texas-San Antonio and Coastal Carolina. The 54-hole tournament will be held March 9-11.

Players in Hayt will get a glimpse of PGA Tour life

The Tour and Players Championship is going all-out to host players in The Hayt field. There will be tours of the PGA Tour Global Home, pros in The Players field who are alums of teams in The Hayt field are being encouraged to come across the street to watch the competition if they get into town early and the college players also are invited to The Players practice round day on March 12.

In addition, the PGA Tour social media team will be at The Hayt to help promote the event.

"We are very committed to tying The Hayt to The Players," said Justin Bardgett, director of player relations for PGA Tour Pathways and a former assistant college coach at Illinois. "We think this is going to be a great opportunity for college players to see the Tour headquarters and The Players and see the best PGA Tour event we have."

Schroeder said the exposure to The Players and the PGA Tour facilities should be an eye-opening and motivational experience for college players.

"This is the biggest event the PGA Tour runs, so it's going to be really cool for these guys to visit The Players and see the PGA Tour's home," he said. "Of course, they all have dreams of playing on the Tour one day but if they don't, they're going to be seeing a headquarters building that's along the lines of Google and they might see that there is another career path they can take."

UNF has a prime example of that: former player and assistant coach Jeff Dennis is now on the Tour's player relations staff.

The Hayt is a showcase for PGA Tour U

The Hayt can also help the PGA Tour in another key regard: offering a showcase of the PGA Tour University rankings. PGA Tour U, with the World Amateur Rankings, maintains a list of the top college seniors based on their performances in college events and PGA Tour events for which they receive sponsor invitations or Monday qualifiers.

UNF's Nick Gabrelcik is third on the current PGA Tour U. Other ranked players in The Hayt field are No. 5 Austin Greaser of North Carolina, No. 8 Maxwell Moldovan of Ohio State, No. 9 Dylan Menante of UNC, No. 22 Canon Claycomb and No. 31 Thomas Ponder of Alabama, No. 35 Robbie Higgins of North Florida and No. 46 Max Kennedy of Louisville.

The No. 1 player at the end of the NCAA Championships in May (Christo Lamprecht of Georgia Tech is atop this week's ranking) will earn full PGA Tour status. Nos. 2 through 5 will get Korn Ferry Tour cards and Nos. 6-20 will have status on PGA Tour Americas.

Is it working? Last year's No. 1 player, Ludvig Aberg of Texas Tech, won on the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour and went 2-2 for Europe in the Ryder Cup, and Austin Eckroat of Oklahoma State, who graduated to the Korn Ferry Tour off the 2021 PGA Tour U rankings, won last week at the Cognizant Classic.

Of the 48 players who earned status on professional tours in the first three PGA Tour U rankings, 13 reached the PGA Tour within two years.

"It's a merit-based system," Bardgett said. "Before, guys would come out of college and unless they were a generational talent like Tiger Woods, they had to bounce around to get sponsor exemptions or Monday qualify. The top 25 college players coming out had 25 strategies for how they wanted to get to the Tour. Now they can let their talent take over."

Hayt field is 'elite'

In addition to the players in The Hayt field on the PGA Tour U rankings, seven are among top-50 on the Spikemark Rankings: No. 5 David Ford of UNC, No. 7 Gabrelcik, No. 11 Maxwell Ford of UNC, No. 23 Sebastian Moss of Louisville, No. 32 Neal Shipley of Ohio State and No. 38 Ben James and No. 40 Bryan Lee of Virginia.

Gabrelcik, David Ford, Greaser, Menante and James were on the winning U.S. Walker Cup team last year.

"There are a lot of elite players in this field," Schroeder said. "It's the best set of individuals we've seen this season and it's a great opportunity for us as we build towards to postseason."

The Ospreys should be in the mix. They have not finished lower than fifth in eight tournaments in the 2023-24 season and Gabrelcik and Higgins have each won a spring event. Gabrelcik has seven top-10s in eight starts and Higgins has four.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Nick Gabrelcik of UNF leads strong group of PGA Tour U players in The Hayt