BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s golf team returns to action Saturday after a four-week break when it travels to Statesboro, Ga., to compete in the 2006 Schenkel/E-Z-Go Invitational at Forest Heights Country Club. The course will play to a par 72 and 6,945 yards for the championship.
The Tigers are looking to build on back-to-back impressive performances to open the spring season when they earned a sixth-place finish at the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship and a fifth-place finish at the SunTrust Gator Invitational in February. LSU is currently 18-9 on the spring with victories against five teams ranked in the latest Golfstat Top 25.
Joining the Tigers in the 15-team field this weekend are tournament host Georgia Southern, No. 3 Florida, No. 12 Tennessee, No. 16 South Carolina, No. 18 Alabama, No. 21 Minnesota, No. 22 Kentucky, Auburn, Augusta State, Michigan State, North Carolina, N.C. State, Ohio State and Toledo.
“We have prepared well for this event,” said LSU head coach Chuck Winstead. “It’s a good time for us to compete and get another chance to test ourselves not just against our competition, but against ourselves. One of the great things about golf is you control your own ball, and this is another opportunity for us to evaluate our improvement in all facets of the game ? both mental and physical.”
Winstead will play with the same lineup for the third straight tournament as senior Andrew Lanahan, junior Chris Wells and sophomores Brian Noonan, Brent Struthers and Beck Troutman get the nod for the Tigers.
Lanahan has been a steady performer for much of the season as he has earned a pair of top-20 finishes to open the spring, including the best finish of his LSU career with a sixth-place tie at the Gator Invitational on Feb. 19. The Jacksonville, Fla., native leads the team with four top-20 finishes and a 73.6 stroke average in five tournament appearances.
Wells is making his team-leading 20th consecutive tournament appearance dating back to last season and is currently second on the squad with a 73.9 stroke average and three top-20 finishes in 2005-06. Troutman averages an even 74 strokes per round with a pair of top-five finishes in seven tournament starts, while Noonan and Struthers provide stability in the lineup as each has appeared in six tournaments this season.
“We’ve continued to work on all facets of the game in the past month or so with a major emphasis being on our short game on and around the greens,” Winstead said. “The way to lower scores is by shrinking your average distance from the hole, and the guys have put a lot of work into improving that aspect of their game. We will certainly need that to be successful in this tournament.”
First-round action begins Saturday with a shotgun start at 7 a.m. CST followed by the second round in the afternoon. The championship will be decided in a final round scheduled for Sunday. Live scoring is provided throughout the weekend by www.golfstat.com.