Last Wednesday, the Michigan men’s golf team made the 50-mile trek for a practice round at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, the site of this year’s NCAA Finals. For No. 48 Michigan, the trip meant much more than a tune-up away from its home course in Ann Arbor. With a top-5 finish in its NCAA regional on May 14, it will reach the finals for just the second time in 40 years.

As the No. 8 seed, the Wolverines’ invitation to the Central regional in Austin, Texas marks the first time they have strung together regional bids in consecutive years — not to mention that it's only the program's fifth regional appearance since the new tournament format was instituted in 1989.

Michigan is one of 13 teams that will meet at the University of Texas Golf Club for the three-day, 54-hole event. The five teams with the lowest three-round scores from each of the six regional tournaments throughout the country will decide the field for the championship round in Toledo on May 26.

The past two seasons' bids are the first two under the direction of Michigan coach Andrew Sapp, who succeeded Jim Carras in 2002. Last season, Sapp’s team entered the regional in the No. 15 seed and missed out on a finals appearance by only three strokes.

“They’re hungry,” Sapp said. “It would be a great opportunity to get these guys playing in that championship. We’re going to have to come with our best games.”

That hunger — fueled by a near-finals appearance last year and a disappointing eighth-place finish at the Big Ten Championships last weekend — could translate into a momentous weekend in Austin for a Michigan team returning four of its top five players from last year.

“It’s really coming together,” Sapp said. “We’ve got some good veteran players who have been through the hard times and have worked extremely hard to get here and we’ve got some young players as well to balance things out.”

Those veteran players, senior co-captains Bill Rankin and Nick Pumford, have each started in at least seven tournaments in each of the last three seasons. They have earned their titles as captains on and off the course — Rankin received Academic All-Big Ten honors in his sophomore year and Pumford is a recipient of the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award this year.

The Wolverines are also full of young talent that complements the veteran leadership. Sophomores Lion Kim and Alexander Sitompul are both crucial pieces of their young core; Kim is one of three Michigan players to start in every tournament this year and Sitompul finished third in the River Landing Intercollegiate, Michigan’s final regular season event.

Freshman Matt Thompson, Michigan's Mr. Golf 2008, might be the most talented of the three underclassmen. Thompson’s spring season is highlighted by his performance in the Big Ten Match Play Championship, where he won all three of his individual matches and earned All-Tournament honors.

This mix of experienced leadership and youthful talent is exactly the formula Sapp feels can help the team continue the latest pattern of improvement from year to year.

“The young guys get to learn from the older guys and help them out, and hopefully they’ll do the same thing for the incoming players next season,” Sapp said. “We’re going in the right direction.”

But despite that formula, the Wolverines have displayed inconsistency of late. After second and fourth-place finishes to close out the regular season, the Wolverines finish at the Big Ten Championships was subpar to say the least.

But the blueprint Sapp has worked from over the last few seasons will attract more young talent to a team already loaded with potential. Just last month, Michigan signed Rahul Bakshi, who won the National Amateur Golf Championship of India when he was 17, the youngest ever to accomplish the feat. Sapp also signed Jack Schultz, the 2007 Wisconsin High School Player of the Year.

This influx of talent and the maturation of players like Kim, Sitompul and Thompson are encouraging signs that the Wolverines will amass more than just two straight regional bids. The makeup of this team suggests, and the marked improvement confirms, that future NCAA finals appearances are inevitable.

The first such appearance under Sapp just might come next weekend.