BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s golf team certainly took another step toward the nation’s elite with its performance this spring, and it was rewarded for an outstanding finish with a Top 20 ranking in the final Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index of the 2008-09 season.
The Tigers wrapped up the season with a No. 19 national ranking by Golfweek following a trip to the NCAA South Central Regional at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla.
It was a banner season for LSU as the team won three tournament titles for the first time since the 2003-04 season, including the Gopher Invitational (Sept. 12-14), the John Hayt Invitational (Feb. 22-24) and the Reunion Intercollegiate (April 6-7) to end the regular season.
Not only that, but the Tigers earned their highest finish at the SEC Championships since the 2002 season with a fourth-place finish in the final team standings.
Sophomore All-America candidate John Peterson was brilliant all season long as he proved to be one of the premier players in the country for 2008-09. In what is perhaps the most prolific season by a Tiger in more than a decade, Peterson earned First-Team All-SEC honors while averaging an impressive 72.48 strokes a round while earning five Top 5, six Top 10 and eight Top 20 finishes.
Like the Tigers, Peterson finished ranked among the nation’s Top 20 players by Golfweek with a No. 20 ranking in the Golfweek/Sagarin Individual Player Ratings.
The Fort Worth, Texas, native earned his first career individual tournament title at the John Hayt Invitational before wrapping up the season with four-straight third-place finishes, including at the SEC Championships and NCAA South Central Regional. Peterson is the first Tiger to earn a top-five finish at the SEC Championships since John Humphries in 2003.
Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index ? Final Ranking
1. Oklahoma State, 69.65
2. Georgia, 69.95
3. Southern California, 70.44
4. Washington, 70.54
5. Stanford, 70.88
6. Clemson, 70.90
7. Georgia Tech, 70.92
8. Florida, 70.93
9. Arkansas, 70.98
10. Alabama, 71.00
11. Arizona State, 71.07
12. Texas A&M, 71.12
13. South Carolina, 71.17
14. Illinois, 71.25
15. Central Florida, 71.27
16. TCU, 71.40
17. Tennessee, 71.42
18. UCLA, 71.44
19. LSU, 71.45
20. Texas Tech, 71.48
21. Indiana, 71.51
22. NC State, 71.56
23. UNLV, 71.62
24. San Diego State, 71.65
25. Chattanooga, 71.68