BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s golf team is set to compete in its third tournament of a busy spring season as it heads to the Sunshine State on Sunday for the first round of the Seminole Intercollegiate at Golden Eagle Country Club in Tallahassee, Fla.
The course will play to a par 72 and 6,965 yards for the weekend with first-round action slated to get underway at 6:30 a.m. CST. The 54-hole tournament will resume Monday with the second round followed by a third and final round Tuesday to determine the championship.
The Tigers will tee it up against a 15-team field with a Southern flavor as they join tournament host Florida State and SEC rivals Auburn, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt, as well as No. 13 North Carolina, No. 14 East Tennessee State, Central Florida, College of Charleston, NC State, Northwestern, Toledo, UAB and Virginia.
“Our guys are looking forward to getting back on the course and competing in the tournament this week in Tallahassee,” said LSU head coach Chuck Winstead. “They have continued to work very hard on their game over the last couple of weeks, and they’re ready to put their preparation to the test on a course that they haven’t seen before.”
Winstead has elected to play with a familiar group of Tigers as four make their return after cracking the lineup at the John Hayt Invitational two weeks ago. Senior Chris Wells, junior Brian Noonan and junior Beck Troutman have been stalwarts this season as they have now appeared in all six events, while freshman Brent Blaum is making his second straight appearance and fifth of his career and fellow freshman Bryant Lach is making his second of the spring.
Noonan continues to be LSU’s top performer this season as he has been the team’s top finisher in four tournaments, including a 25th-place finish at Sawgrass Country Club two weeks ago. He also boasts a pair of Top 10 finishes as he took runner-up honors at the Shoal Creek Intercollegiate in September followed by a ninth-place finish at the Oklahoma Intercollegiate to close the fall season in October.
The native of Austin, Texas, also leads the squad with a 72.8 stroke average with six of his 15 competitive rounds at par or better. Wells, who earned a Top 10 finish of his own by tying for sixth place at the prestigious Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate in the fall, follows closely behind Noonan with a stroke average of 73.7 in 15 rounds, including three rounds at par or better.
The Tigers are paired with ACC members Florida State and North Carolina in Sunday’s first round and will start play from the first hole with tee times beginning at 7:15 a.m. Live scoring of the event will be provided by Golfstat and can be found by logging on to the organization’s official website, www.golfstat.com.