EL PASO, Texas – While competing this week at the prestigious 36th-annual Western Refining College All-America Golf Classic being held at El Paso Country Club, LSU senior Andrew Loupe finished in a tie for sixth place and fellow senior John Peterson finished in a tie for 12th place on the leaderboard in one of the strongest individual fields in all of college golf.
The Sun Bowl Association plays host to the annual 54-hole event as this year’s championship returned for another season to the par-71, 6,837 yard layout at El Paso Country Club.
LSU’s All-America duo competed as part of a deep field of 31 competitors including 20 collegians ranked among the Top 100 individual players in the country in the latest Golfstat rankings. Each season, the field is limited returning All-Americans from the previous season, Walker Cup team members and the Division II and Division III National Players of the Year from the previous season.
Each university represented in the field is awarded a $1,000 scholarship to benefit the men’s golf program in honor of their selection. Since 1974, the Sun Bowl Association has donated close to $650,000 to men’s golf programs nationwide in the form for scholarship contributions.
And with Loupe and Peterson receiving an invitation to compete in the 36th-annual Western Refining Golf Classic, LSU has featured a total of 11 competitors in the event all-time. In fact, Peterson was honored for the second year in a row with his second-straight appearance in El Paso.
After opening the tournament Monday with back-to-back rounds of 2-under par 69, Loupe fired a third 2-under 69 in Tuesday’s final round to finish in a tie for sixth place overall with a score of 6-under 207.
Perhaps Sunday’s pre-tournament festivities were a sign of things to come for Loupe in his event debut as he was crowned champion of the Titleist Long Drive competition after launching an impressive 361-yard drive into a strong headwind of 15 miles per hour. Loupe and Peterson then played Georgia All-American Russell Henley to extra holes in the PING Putting Contest with equal scores of 25 after nine holes. On the second playoff hole, Henley took the title with Peterson finishing runner-up.
Peterson, who finished in a tie for 23rd place with a score of 5-over 218 in his first appearance last season, sandwiched a pair of matching even-par scores of 71 in the first and third rounds around a 4-under par 67 in the second round to finish in a tie for 12th place with a 54-hole score of 4-under 209.
University of San Diego standout Alex Ching earned a three-shot victory over Georgia Tech’s J.T. Griffin and Claremont’s Tain Lee by firing three-straight 4-under 67s for a winning score of 12-under 201.