CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – After opening the 2010 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships on Tuesday with a team score of 15-over par 303, the LSU Tigers bounced back in a big way on Wednesday at The Honors Course as they played through 16 holes at 5-under par for the round in a second round that was halted at 7:45 p.m. CDT due to darkness.
The Tigers opened play Wednesday in 29th place in the team standings, but catapulted themselves into the Top 20 in a tie for 17th place overall with a team score of 10-over par for the tournament.
LSU is among nine teams in the field that were unable to finish play in the second round. The round is set to continue Thursday at 6 a.m. CDT with the start of the third round following at approximately 8 a.m.
After the completion of 54 holes of medal play, the individual NCAA champion will be crowned and the top eight teams finishing in the final standings will be seeded according to finish and earn a spot in the single-elimination match play tournament beginning Friday that will crown this year’s national champion.
“The guys went out today and played the way I know they can play. They played with great determination and focus throughout the round today,” said LSU head coach Chuck Winstead. “We look forward to a big day tomorrow playing with the same determination and focus that we showed today.”
With his play on Wednesday, junior All-American John Peterson has put himself in a strong position for a Top 10 finish at the NCAA Championships as he currently sits in a tie for 11th place on the leaderboard at 3-under par for the championship after playing 16 holes in the second round. Peterson opened the day in a tie for 52nd place overall after posting a 1-over par 73 in the first round.
Peterson started his round on the back nine and quickly dropped to 1-under for the day by making a birdie on the par-five 11th hole. He then traded a bogey at No. 12 with a birdie on No. 13 before making the turn at 2-under par for his round with another birdie at the par-five 17th hole.
The Fort Worth native has been flawless on his back nine as he carded a pair of birdies on holes No. 3 and No. 5 before being called off the course on the par-three eighth.
Junior Andrew Loupe and sophomore Sang Yi have also led the Tigers in the second round as each ended the day with four birdies and three bogeys on their card for a score of 1-under par.
Loupe, who has completed 13 holes in the second round, has dropped to 2-over par for the championships and into a tie for 55th place in the individual standings after opening up with a 3-over 75 in the first round. Yi has bounced back from an opening round 6-over 78 to move into a tie for 91st place overall with a total of 5-over par through 14 holes in the second round of play.
Junior Clayton Rotz is also currently among the four counting scores for the Tigers as he left the course at 1-over par through 14 holes. Sophomore Austin Gutgsell is currently 5-over par through 15 holes.
Each of the top eight teams on the in the leaderboard have wrapped up the second round with No. 10 seed Florida State holding a five-shot lead over No. 3 seed Oklahoma State with a 36-hole score of 14-under 562. The Seminoles fired the lowest round of the day at 9-under 279 to put themselves in the driver’s seat for the No. 1 seed in the match play competition at this year’s NCAA Championships.
Georgia Tech follows 10 shots back in third place at 4-under 572, while Augusta State sits in fourth place at 1-under 575. Florida and San Diego are each tied for fifth place in the tournament with matching scores of even-par 576, while Clemson and Washington follow in a tie for seventh place at 1-over 577.
Alex Ching of San Diego currently holds a two-shot lead over Scott Langley of Illinois, Henrik Norlander of Augusta State and Peter Uihlein of Oklahoma State for the honor of being crowned the NCAA individual champion of 2010. Ching has fired scores of 3-under 69 in the first round and 6-under 66 in the second round to sit in first place with a 36-hole score of 9-under par 135.
The NCAA will provide a live webcast of the championships during the second and third rounds of stroke play, which can be found online at www.NCAA.com. Live scoring from each round of stroke play will be provided by Golfstat and can be found by logging on to www.golfstat.com.