BATON ROUGE — With the start of the 2009 SEC Men’s Golf Championships right around the corner, the 23rd-ranked LSU men’s golf team will continue its postseason preparation this week as it travels to Awendaw, S.C., to tee it up in the fifth-annual Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate.
The three-day, 54-hole championship is scheduled to begin Sunday at picturesque Bulls Bay Golf Club as the course will play to a par 71 and 7,261 yards for each round.
LSU will be joined by 14 programs from across the Southeast, including five teams ranked in the top 25 of the latest Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index. The Tigers will compete against host College of Charleston, No. 5 Clemson, No. 10 South Carolina, No. 15 Central Florida, No. 22 NC State, No. 24 Wake Forest, Augusta State, Georgia State, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina-Aiken, Tennessee-Chattanooga and Virginia.
The Tigers are paired with Chattanooga and Maryland in Sunday’s opening round and will tee off from the back nine beginning at 9 a.m. CT. Live stats will be provided by www.golfstat.com.
The tournament features a round of 18 holes each day for each of the 15 teams in this year’s field as the second round will by played Monday followed by the third and final round on Tuesday.
The Tigers used Friday as their travel day to South Carolina, but didn’t arrive until late Saturday afternoon due to severe weather affecting their flight plans. Despite having heavy thunderstorms in the forecast for Saturday night, temperatures will hover in the upper 60s with little to no chance of rain for each of the three days of the tournament.
Head coach Chuck Winstead has elected to play with a lineup of senior Jarrod Barsamian, junior Brent Blaum, and sophomores Andrew Loupe, John Peterson and Clayton Rotz.
Loupe and Peterson have been staples in LSU’s five-man lineup all season long as each is making his team-leading eighth tournament appearance of the season. Peterson leads the team with a 73.0 scoring average in 21 competitive rounds, while earning a pair of Top 10 finishes on the year.
Barsamian is making his fourth start of the season and first of the spring as he is seeking a second Top 10 finish of the year. Blaum has cracked the lineup for the third time in four spring events, as he boasts a stroke average of 74.0 in six rounds. Rotz is set to make his first start since competing at the Shoal Creek Intercollegiate on Sept. 23 for which he was forced to withdraw due to injury.
The Tigers will be without the services of standout freshman Sang Yi this week as he will receive his U.S. citizenship on Monday. Yi leads the team with three Top 10 finishes on the season and is second on the squad with a 73.5 scoring average in seven tournament starts for the Tigers.
After competing in the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate this weekend, the Tigers will travel to Jackson, Miss., on April 6-7 to tee it up in their final tournament of the regular season at the 2009 Reunion Intercollegiate to be held at Reunion Golf and Country Club. The two-day, 54-hole event will be hosted by the Ole Miss Rebels.
The 2009 SEC Men’s Golf Championships makes its return to Frederica Golf Club in St. Simons Island, Ga., this year as the tournament is scheduled for April 17-19.