BATON ROUGE – The No. 12-ranked LSU men’s golf team will have an opportunity to defend its team championship this week as it returns to Bulls Bay Golf Club in Awendaw, S.C., to compete in the seventh annual Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate Collegiate beginning Sunday morning.
The opening round of the tournament kicks off Sunday at 9 a.m. CDT, while the second round follows on Monday with the third and final round of the 54-hole event scheduled for Tuesday.
The Tigers led wire-to-wire in winning the team title a year ago after firing a 7-under par 845 for 54 holes played at the par-71 layout. LSU outlasted an impressive 15-team field for its first victory at the Hootie as it defeated such elite programs as Wake Forest (846), Virginia (848), South Carolina (850), Augusta State (853), Duke (854), Auburn (855) and Clemson (857).
LSU, which is ranked as high as No. 12 nationally in the Golfstat Top 25 this week, must defend the team its crown against another strong 15-team field that features six other nationally-ranked programs with No. 3 Florida, No. 6 Augusta State, No. 7 Texas A&M, No. 11 Auburn, No. 16 Virginia and No. 20 Duke.
Rounding out this year’s field are host College of Charleston, Kentucky, NC State, North Carolina, North Florida, Ole Miss, South Carolina and Wake Forest.
The Tigers are paired with Florida and Wake Forest in the first round with tee times beginning at 9 a.m. at the first tee. Live scoring of the event can be found online by logging on to www.golfstat.com. Pairings in the second and third rounds of the tournament have yet to be determined.
Four members of LSU’s five-man starting lineup that captured the team title at the Hootie last season will make their return to Bulls Bay Golf Club this week to defend their crown.
Senior All-Americans Andrew Loupe and John Peterson are sure to lead the way for the Tigers during the event, while juniors Austin Gutgsell and Sang Yi are also looking to repeat their success from last year. In addition, true freshman Andrew Presley will compete in the tournament for the first time in his career.
Yi enjoyed his best tournament as an LSU Tiger at the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate in 2010 after he broke par in three-straight rounds to finish in a tie for third place on the leaderboard with a 54-hole total at 6-under 207. That performance is also Yi’s lowest tournament score in relation to par for his career.
Loupe also earned a top-10 finish of his own in the event by tying for 10th place last season with a score at 2-under 211. For Loupe, it was his fourth of a career-high six top-10 finishes for the 2009-10 season as he went on to tie for fourth place overall at the SEC Men’s Golf Championships en route to picking up a pair of Honorable Mention All-America honors from PING and Golfweek for his performance.
Loupe has added three more top-10 finishes to his resume this season for a total of 14 for his stint at LSU. Peterson is tied for the team lead with four top-10 finishes on the season as he also owns a total of 14 with his collegiate career. They are tied for sixth place on the team list for career Top 10s since 1982.
The duo has guided the Tigers throughout the season as Loupe owns a team-leading 72.2 scoring average, while Peterson follows with a 72.3 scoring average in seven tournament appearances.