BATON ROUGE – The No. 6-ranked LSU men’s golf team is set to open its 2011 spring season this weekend with its annual trip to Florida’s Mark Bostick Golf Course in Gainesville, Fla., where it will tee it up in the 2011 Gator Invitational on Saturday and Sunday.
The first and second rounds will be held on Saturday beginning with a shotgun start at 7 a.m. CST, while the final round is set for Sunday with tee times also beginning at 7 a.m.
Live scoring of the event will be provided by Golfstat and can be found online at www.golfstat.com. LSU fans can also receive live updates of the Tigers during the tournament by becoming a fan of LSU Men’s Golf on Facebook and following @LSUMensGolf on Twitter.
The sixth-ranked Tigers will compete as part of a 14-team regional field that features two other teams that are ranked in the latest Golfstat Top 25 national ranking. LSU will be joined by tournament host and No. 3 Florida, No. 13 Auburn, Central Florida, Coastal Carolina, Florida State, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Jacksonville, Lamar, Mississippi State, North Florida, Ole Miss and UAB.
LSU is ranked as high as No. 6 nationally in the latest Golfstat Top 25 poll, while also being ranked No. 8 this week in both the Golfweek Top 25 and Golf World/Nike Golf Coaches’ Top 25 polls.
Three Tigers are returning to the Mark Bostick Golf Course from the lineup that tied for fifth place during the Gator Invitational a season ago with a team score of 32-over par 872. Florida defended its home turf at last year’s event by winning the team championships with a score of 1-over 841.
Senior All-American Andrew Loupe enjoyed an outstanding start to his spring season in 2010 at the event with a second-place finish individually with a 54-hole score of 1-over 211. After opening with back-to-back rounds of 1-over 71 on the first day of competition, Loupe returned to the course to fire a 1-under 69 in the final round en route to what was then his best finish as an LSU Tiger.
Loupe, who picked up Honorable Mention All-America honors from both PING and Golfweek in 2010, is looking to continue that success this season as he already wrapped up the fall campaign with back-to-back top-10 finishes at the David Toms Intercollegiate and Isleworth Collegiate Invitational. He will open 2011 with the No. 2-ranked scoring average on the team at 72.8 strokes per round in three fall appearances.
Also scheduled to make their returns to the Mark Bostick Golf Course for the Gator Invitational as part of LSU’s five-man lineup are fellow senior All-American John Peterson and junior standout Sang Yi.
Peterson, who was recently crowned tournament champion of the prestigious Jones Cup Invitational in St. Simons Island, Ga., just last weekend, currently ranks No. 3 on the team with a 73.1 scoring average and a pair of top-10 finishes this season. Yi averaged 73.3 strokes per round in four appearances in the fall.
Seniors Ken Looper and Clayton Rotz will solidify LSU’s starting lineup this weekend at the Gator Invite as the team seeks its third tournament title of the 2010-11 campaign. Looper was impressive during the fall season as he finished as the team leader with a 72.6 scoring average and three top-10 finishes while he started all four events. Rotz matched Peterson with a 73.1 scoring average of his own.
The Tigers are paired with Florida and Georgia Southern on the first day of competition as they will begin on holes No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 with a shotgun start scheduled for 7 a.m. CST.
After competing in the Gator Invitational this weekend, the Tigers will return to the state of Florida in just two weeks with an appearance in the 2011 John Hayt Invitational scheduled to be held Feb. 27-March 1 at Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. The Tigers have enjoyed much success in recent years at the John Hayt Invitational after winning the team title in 2009 and finishing runner-up a season ago.