BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s golf team is looking to build on its strong finish at the Seminole Intercollegiate two weeks ago as it travels to Statesboro, Ga., on Saturday to compete in the 28th-annual Schenkel/E-Z-Go Invitational at Forest Heights Country Club.
A total of 36 holes of the 54-hole event are scheduled to be played Saturday beginning with a shotgun start at 7:30 a.m. CDT followed by the second round at approximately 1 p.m. Sunday’s third and final round will get underway with tee times at 8 a.m.
“We’re looking forward to returning to competition this weekend after having some better play in our last event,” said LSU head coach Chuck Winstead. “It will be tough with a very strong field, but our guys have continued to work hard on their games and it should be a good challenge. The story of the spring so far has been the lack of a fourth score, and that’s something we’re looking for this weekend.”
The Tigers’ lineup of senior Chris Wells, juniors Brian Noonan and Beck Troutman, sophomore Jarrod Barsamian and freshman Brent Blaum will compete against perhaps its strongest field of the season that features eight Southeastern Conference squads and a total of seven teams ranked in the top 25 and 11 in the top 50 of the latest Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings
Joining the Tigers and tournament host Georgia Southern are No. 2 Georgia, No. 3 Florida, No. 4 Alabama, No. 14 North Carolina, No. 15 Tennessee, No. 16 Texas A&M, No. 21 Minnesota, Augusta State, Arizona, Auburn, Kentucky, Michigan State, NC State, New Mexico, Ohio State and South Carolina.
The tournament will also feature many of the nation’s premier collegiate golfers according to Golfweek led by second-ranked Billy Horschel (Florida), No. 4 Brian Prouty (Arizona), No. 5 Charlie Beljan (New Mexico), No. 6 Brian Harman (Georgia), No. 9 Chris Kirk (Georgia), No. 19 Brendon Todd (Georgia) and No. 22 Philip Pettit (Tennessee).
Wells is coming off of his best finish of the season as he tied for third place at the Seminole Intercollegiate two weeks ago with a 54-hole score of 3-under par 213, including a 3-under 69 in the final round for his best round of the spring season. The Mobile, Ala., native is the active career leader with nine Top 10 finishes as he has cracked the lineup in 39 straight tournaments.
Noonan, who leads the team with a pair of Top 10 finishes and a 72.9 stroke average, is one of three Tigers making their team-leading seventh tournament appearance of the season as he joins both Wells and Troutman in leading the Tigers’ effort this weekend. This will mark the sixth time that Blaum has cracked the lineup in his true freshman season, while Barsamian is making his fourth appearance.
The Tigers are paired with New Mexico and Ohio State in Saturday’s opening round and will tee off from the back nine on holes No. 16, No. 17 and No. 18. Live scoring of the prestigious Schenkel/E-Z-Go Invitational will be provided all weekend long by Golfstat and can be found at the organization’s official website, www.golfstat.com.