The Georgia men’s golf team will be back in action Saturday through Monday, teeing it up at the third-annual Brickyard Collegiate in Macon, where Georgia is looking to defend back-to-back titles at The Brickyard at Riverside Golf Club.

It will be a homecoming of sorts with the Dogs playing in Macon, the home of junior All-SEC player Russell Henley.

“I’m very comfortable with the golf course,” Henley said. “[Junior Harris English's] first college win was there, and I think we’ve all played well there, so it gives us a lot of confidence going down there, being familiar with the course.”

“I think going into it we know we’ve had some success down there,” coach Chris Haack said. “We will go into it feeling comfortable about the golf course, which every year is a little different, but it’s the same ol’ thing, we’ve just got to go down there and play.”

Unfortunately for the Dogs, they will do so again without the services of sophomore Will Kropp, who was expected to be back but is going to need a little more time to recuperate from a shoulder injury which has sidelined him for all of the fall season.

“He’s still a little tentative,” Haack said of Kropp missing his projected return.

“The injuries have kind of kept him from practicing, and he’s not very sharp. His game is not as sharp as he’d like it to be, so it wasn’t going to do him any good to go down there and not play well, so we’re going to take some more time to get it in line.”

Henley added: “I think Will has made a lot of progress in the last couple of weeks with his shoulder and his game, and I think he’s moving right back up.”

With Kropp still sidelined, Haack will use a lineup of junior veterans Henley and English, true freshman Brian Carter, redshirt freshman T.J. Mitchell, and redshirt junior Rob Bennett.

English will be looking to get his second consecutive victory after co-medaling at the Fighting Illini Invitiational. For English, it will be a return to a place that has been kind to him in the past, as his first collegiate win came at the Brickyard, setting the scoring-record for the event with a blistering 12-under-par total.

“I think if he and Russell both play solid golf, I’m sure they’ll put themselves in the position to at least have a chance to win,” Haack said. “They’re both going in there with a lot of confidence, so just go in and try to make a few putts.”

Carter is also fresh off a solid performance with a top-10 finish at The Fighting Illini Invitational, a trend his coach hopes to see continue this weekend.

“You see him fitting in and getting more comfortable with practicing,” Haack said. “But it’s still one of those things where he can’t have one good tournament, and that’s it. He’s got to keep working at it and keep practicing.”

The Dogs’ should receive a tough test this weekend, as this is the toughest field the Brickyard Collegiate has seen in it’s short three year history, boasting four teams in the top-25 – No. 7 FSU, No. 14 North Florida, No. 16 Michigan, and No. 21 Georgia Tech.

“The field gets better and better every year. We’re excited to go back down there and we’ve had a lot of success down there,” Henley said. “Hopefully we will keep having success down there.”