BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s golf team is wasting little time in getting back on the course after last week’s Gator Invitational as it travels to Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., on Sunday to compete in the prestigious John Hayt Invitational at Sawgrass Country Club.
The course, which is the former site of PGA Tour stop The Player’s Championship and the host of one of the nation’s premier collegiate tournaments formerly known as the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship, will play to a par 72 and 6,895 yards for the weekend.
The Tigers will compete against one of the strongest fields they have seen to this point in the season as it features five teams from the always competitive Southeastern Conference and six teams that enter the weekend ranked in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin Top 25, including four among the nation’s Top 10 squads.
Joining LSU and tournament host North Florida are fifth-ranked and SEC rival Alabama, No. 8 Coastal Carolina, No. 9 Tennessee, No. 10 UCLA, No. 21 Georgia State, No. 25 Charlotte, Augusta State, Central Florida, North Florida, Notre Dame, Pepperdine, South Carolina, UAB and Vanderbilt.
LSU head coach Chuck Winstead is tweaking the No. 4 and No. 5 spots in the lineup this weekend as junior Garrett Runion and freshman Brent Blaum are slated to make their first start of the spring season. They join senior Chris Wells, junior Brian Noonan and junior Beck Troutman, who are each making their fifth tournament appearance of the season for the Tigers.
“We’re looking for our top three players to continue to improve this spring and for a couple of the other guys to step up and take over that fourth and fifth spot in the lineup,” Winstead said. “We’re tweaking the lineup a little bit this weekend to give some other guys an opportunity to show us what they can do.”
Blaum proved to be a steady performer in the fall as the true freshman from Coral Gables, Fla., earned the start in each of LSU’s three tournaments, while Runion is making his first tournament appearance in the purple and gold since competing in the NCAA West Regional at the Stanford Golf Course in Palo Alto, Calif., in May 2005.
“Brent showed us that he can contribute by how he played in the fall, and he’s starting to feel more comfortable again after making a swing change over the break with his teacher, David Leadbetter,” Winstead said. “Garrett is playing in his first event for us in more than a year, but he’s played in this tournament before and has played some solid rounds for LSU in the past.”
The Tigers are paired with Charlotte and UAB in the first round and will start on the front nine with tee times beginning at 7:45 a.m. CST. Live scoring of the event is provided by Golfstat and can be found on the organization’s official website, www.golfstat.com.