BATON ROUGE — Following a strong performance at the Schenkel/E-Z-Go Invitational, the LSU men’s golf team looks to build momentum as it travels to Bulls Bay Golf Club in Awendaw, S.C., on Sunday to compete in the fourth-annual Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate.
The Tigers are fresh off a seventh-place finish at the prestigious Schenkel/E-Z-Go Invitational a week ago where they battled 18 of the nation’s best squads over the course of the three-day event.
They will face a strong field once again as the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate features a 15-team field with six teams currently ranked among the Top 25 teams in the nation in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index. The tournament runs through Tuesday as the course will play to a par 72 and 7,014 yards for the championship.
The Tigers are looking to build momentum as they head toward the postseason and will battle the likes of No. 9 Florida, No. 12 Duke, No. 14 Auburn, No. 16 South Carolina, No. 17 Wake Forest and No. 21 Clemson in one of the premier young tournaments in all of college golf.
Rounding out the field are tournament host College of Charleston, Augusta State, Baylor, Central Florida, Kentucky, Lamar, NC State and Virginia Tech.
“This is truly a great event in college golf,” said LSU head coach Chuck Winstead. “The players enjoy playing this golf course, and the defense of the course is the wind and the undulation on and around the greens. With a quick turnaround from our last event, our guys need to continue to maintain their focus as we face another strong field.
“Our guys are playing well as a group right now, and we have a great opportunity to continue to improve as a team this week at the Hootie.”
Winstead has elected to play with a starting five of senior Brian Noonan, sophomore Bryant Lach and freshmen Andrew Loupe, John Peterson and Clayton Rotz. Both Noonan and Lach are making a return trip to the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate where they finished in a tie for 47th place a year ago with a 54-hole score of 8-over 221.
LSU’s freshman trio of Loupe, Peterson and Rotz comprise the fourth-ranked freshman class in the country according to Golfstat and look to continue to lead the Tigers following an outstanding performance at the Schenkel/E-Z-Go Invitational a week ago.
Both Loupe and Rotz lead the team with an impressive 73.4 stroke average in their first season of college golf, and each will be making his eighth tournament appearance of the 2007-08 campaign. Rotz is the team leader with two Top 10 finishes and five Top 20 finishes to his credit this season.
Peterson is the only Tiger to crack the lineup in all nine tournaments to this point in the season, while Noonan is making his seventh appearance and Lach is making his fifth at the Hootie.
The action at the fourth-annual Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate kicks off Sunday with the first round followed by Monday’s second round and Tuesday’s final round. Live scoring of the event will be provided by Golfstat and can be found online by logging on to the organization’s official website at www.golfstat.com.
After their appearance in the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate, the Tigers will travel to Reunion Golf Club in Jackson, Miss., to compete in the Reunion Intercollegiate from April 7-8. They will then make the trip to Frederica Golf Club in St. Simons Island, Ga., to compete in the 2008 SEC Men’s Golf Championships from April 18-20.