BATON ROUGE — After earning a No. 17 national ranking in the Golf World/Nike Golf Preseason Coaches’ Poll released Sept. 3, the LSU men’s golf team was tabbed the No. 12 team in the country in the release of the Golfweek Preseason Top 25 last week.
The Tigers have solidified their position as one of the top 20 programs nationally with their performance in the last two seasons after finishing the 2008-09 campaign with a No. 19 national ranking by Golfweek.
LSU returns one of the more talented rosters in all of college golf this season as junior All-American John Peterson, junior Andrew Loupe, junior Clayton Rotz, sophomore Josh Jones and sophomore Sang Yi look to build on their NCAA Regional appearance from a year ago.
Peterson enjoyed the most prolific season for an LSU Tiger in more than a decade with his performance in 2008-09 as he was named a Second-Team All-American by both PING and Golfweek, as well as a First-Team All-SEC selection after leading the Tigers to a fourth-place tie at the SEC Championships for their best finish in the event since the 2001-02 season.
The Fort Worth, Texas, native finished his sophomore season ranked No. 20 in Golfweek’s ranking of the top college golfers in the country. The writers at Golfweek consider Peterson one of the top 10 returning players nationwide as he has been ranked as the No. 8 individual in the publication’s preseason poll.
LSU is one of seven SEC teams ranked in the Golfweek Preseason Top 25, including No. 7 Georgia, No. 9 Alabama, No. 13 Arkansas, No. 18 Florida, No. 19 South Carolina and No. 20 Tennessee.
Golfweek Preseason Top 25
Team (Final ’08-09 Golfweek Ranking)
1. Stanford (5)
2. Oklahoma State (1)
3. Washington (4)
4. Texas A&M (12)
5. Arizona State (11)
6. Illinois (14)
7. Georgia (2)
8. Augusta State (36)
9. Alabama (10)
10. Texas (26)
11. Duke (39)
12. LSU (19)
13. Arkansas (9)
14. TCU (16)
15. UCLA (18)
16. Southern California (3)
17. Georgia Tech (7)
18. Florida (8)
19. South Carolina (13)
20. Tennessee (17)
21. Clemson (6)
22. Oregon (33)
23. Colorado State (27)
24. California (32)
25. Florida State (29)