BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s golf team travels to the state of Florida for the third time this season to compete in the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship on Sunday at Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. The course will play to a par 72 and 6,985 yards for the tournament.
Tee times for the opening round of the 54-hole tournament will begin at 9:30 a.m. CST. Participants will play the second round Monday and a final round Tuesday to decide the championship.
The Tigers join six Southeastern Conference teams in the 17-team field, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee. Tournament host North Florida, UAB, Augusta State, Central Florida, Coastal Carolina, Duke, Florida State, Georgia State, Northwestern and UCLA round out the field. The South Carolina Gamecocks are the defending champion after firing a 54-hole score of 3-under par 852 last season.
“We’re continuing with our theme of playing tough golf courses,” said LSU head coach Greg Jones. “It’s a good opportunity for our players to play a great golf course, and we scheduled tournaments at a lot of tough courses earlier in the season to prepare us for places like this.”
Jones will play with a lineup of seniors Heath West and Jeff Riemann, sophomores Chris Wells and Garrett Runion, and freshman Beck Troutman. West, Wells and Runion are making their seventh tournament appearance of the season, while Troutman is making his fifth and Riemann is making his fourth.
“I want to see our guys go out there and put three rounds together,” Jones said. “Heath and Chris have been our best players because of their patience on the golf course. We need the other guys to learn to have that same kind of patience, especially at this course.”
West earned the best finish of his career at the SunTrust Gator Invitational two weeks ago by finishing in a tie for second place with a 1-over par 211. It was his second top-10 finish of the season. Wells leads the Tigers with three top-10 finishes on the season and is tied with West for the team lead with a 72.11 stroke average.
LSU will break for one month before returning to action at the Schenkel/E-Z-Go Invitational at Forest Heights Country Club in Statesboro, Ga., March 19-20.