BATON ROUGE — Despite heavy downpours throughout the night on Saturday and into Sunday morning, all 18 teams participating in this years Country Club of Louisiana Intercollegiate were able to complete practice rounds Sunday in preparation for Monday’s opening round.
Despite the rains, the course appears in outstanding shape for Monday’s 36-hole opening day of play. First year LSU men’s head coach Greg Jones assures, “I rode the course looking for trouble spots, and it’s still in great condition. I’m looking for some really great scoring in this tournament.”
Jones’ Tigers come into this year’s competition with a lot of confidence. All are very experienced as far as the CCLA course goes, and senior Jeremy Wilkinson of South Bend, Ind., finished last year’s tournament in eighth place with an even par score of 216, which included an impressive closing round of 4-under 68. Fellow senior Michael Vallillo of Winter Park, Fla., finished last year in a tie for 20th at 7-over par and Jason Humphries (senior from Crowley, La.), who competed individually in the tournament last year, came in with a respectable 33rd place finish.
This year’s tournament returns five of the top 10 individual players from last year’s field. Erik Labitzke of North Florida finished the 1998 CCLA in second place shooting an impressive 4-under par total of 212, while North Florida teammate Matt Borchert completed last year’s tournament in a tie for fourth along with Alex Rocha of Mississippi State at 1-under par 215. Michael Trailov of Mississippi State finished 10th in last year’s event after posting a 2-over 218 and will also be back in this year’s event.
One of the favorites has to be Mississippi State’s Rocha who has had a stellar year individually. The nation’s 13th-ranked player according to the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings has finished no worse than third in three of the fall tournaments, including one victory.
On paper, North Florida is one of the team favorites based on the latest Sagarin team rankings with UNF 16th in the national computer rankings with Georgia State 25th in the same poll. Last year’s win by East Tennessee State, which is not back to defend, was the first at CCLA by a non-SEC school. LSU, Tennessee, Auburn and Georgia won titles in the first five years of the event with LSU’s last win coming in the inaugural CCLA.