BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s golf team will welcome 13 teams to town Monday to compete in its final tournament of the fall season, the University Club Intercollegiate. The course will play to a par 72 and 7,205 yards for the championship.
LSU’s intercollegiate tournament has been moved to the University Club after being played as the Country Club of Louisiana Intercollegiate at the CCLA for the past 11 years. The Tigers won the tournament last season by one stroke over Arkansas with a 7-under 857.
LSU head coach Greg Jones talked about the advantage of playing at the team’s home course.
“There is a little comfort with playing at home, and we have an advantage with our knowledge of the course. It’s time we showed our pride in our team, our university and our facility with playing at home. We also need to play with some focus.”
The field features five teams ranked in Golfweek’s top 40, including No. 1 Auburn. Rounding out the field is No. 10 Kent State, No. 23 Georgia Southern, No. 28 Alabama, No. 32 Ole Miss, UAB, Arkansas, Baylor, College of Charleston, Mississippi State, North Florida, SMU and Tulane.
“It’s a very nice field with a mixture of SEC schools and other schools from the Southeast,” said Jones. “Every team in this field has a chance to win the tournament and are capable. You’ll see a tight field that is tightly grouped, and every stroke is going to be important.”
LSU will play with a lineup of seniors Heath West, Brandon Aydlett and Jeff Riemann, and sophomores Chris Wells and Garrett Runion.
Wells leads the Tigers with 72.91 stroke average in 12 rounds and two top-10 finishes. West follows closely behind with a 73.00 average in 12 rounds and one top-10 finish. Runion is making his fifth tournament appearance of the season, while Aydlett and Riemann are making their second and third appearance, respectively.
“The lineup is the same that qualified for the first tournament,” said Jones. “We qualified at the University Club, and they did very well. It’s a senior-laden group, and we need our older guys to be able to handle the situations and conditions we will see.”
Senior Jake Shaw, junior Aaron Smith and freshmen Brent Struthers and Beck Troutman will participate as individuals in the tournament for the Tigers. Smith is making his first tournament appearance of the season.
“We have tried to focus more on putting good rounds and good scores together,” said Jones. “We hope to score very well playing at home.”
The Tigers will be off for three months before returning to action in the Gator Invitational at University of Florida Golf Club in Gainesville, Feb. 5-6.