BATON ROUGE – After receiving a No. 2 seed in NCAA Regional play from the NCAA Selection Committee on May 9, the No. 8-ranked LSU men’s golf team will tee it up in the Virginia Tech Regional beginning Thursday morning at the Pete Dye River Course of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.
The Tigers will look to earn a spot in the field at the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships for the second year in a row after advancing a season ago with a fifth-place finish in the NCAA Central Regional held at Notre Dame’s Warren Golf Course in South Bend, Ind.
The opening round is set to begin with tee times at 7 a.m. CDT as each of the 13 teams in the field will tee off from the front nine on Thursday. The second round will be held Friday, followed by the third and final round Saturday with tee times to be determined at the conclusion of each round.
The No. 2-seeded Tigers are among 13 teams competing in regional play at the Pete Dye River Course of Virginia Tech with the course playing to a par 72 and 7,685 yards for the championship.
As the name might suggest, No. 7 seed Virginia Tech will play host to the Virginia Tech Regional this weekend. LSU will also battle the likes of No. 1 seed and No. 2-ranked Georgia Tech, No. 3 seed and No. 16-ranked Duke, No. 4 seed and No. 17-ranked Virginia and No. 5 seed and No. 24-ranked Oklahoma for the right to advance to the 2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships.
Also invited to compete as part of the 13-team field at the Virginia Tech Regional in order of seeding this weekend is No. 6 seed Kent State, No. 8 seed Ole Miss, No. 9 seed East Carolina, No. 10 seed UNC-Wilmington, No. 11 seed Coastal Carolina, No. 12 seed Lamar and No. 13 seed Yale.
The Tigers will compete alongside No. 1 seed Georgia Tech and No. 3 seed Duke in the first round during Thursday’s action as they will tee off from the front nine beginning at 7 a.m. CDT.
While LSU will compete at the Pete Dye River Course, Golden Ocala Golf Club (Ocala, Fla.), Wolf Run Golf Club (Zionsville, Ind.), Colorado National Golf Club (Erie, Colo.), Omni Tucson Nationals (Tucson, Ariz.) and The Farms Golf Club (Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.) will also serve as NCAA Regional sites.
The top five teams at each regional site will earn the right to tee it up in the 2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships being held at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla., from May 31-June 5.
Live scoring of the 2011 Virginia Tech Regional will be provided by Golfstat and can be found online by logging on to www.golfstat.com. Fans can also receive additional coverage of the Tigers competing for an NCAA Championships berth by liking LSU Men’s Golf on Facebook, and by following @LSUMensGolf on Twitter. Live up-to-the-minute updates will be posted throughout the tournament.
The Tigers have enjoyed a tremendous 2010-11 campaign in which they have won four tournament titles, as well as a fifth-place finish at the 2011 SEC Men’s Golf Championships. LSU has won four tournament championships in a single season for the first time since 1988-89 including the Gopher Invitational, David Toms Intercollegiate, Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate and LSU National Invitational.
In fact, the Tigers have won at least three tournament titles in each of the last three seasons while winning 10 events in their last 35 tournament appearances since the start of the 2008-09 campaign.
This marks the fourth year in a row that the Tigers will compete in NCAA Regional play, as they received a berth into the NCAA West Regional in 2008, the NCAA South Central Regional in 2009 and the NCAA Central Regional in 2010 en route to their first NCAA Championships appearance since 1997.
LSU will have experience on its side this weekend as all five members of the lineup have competed in the NCAA Regional Championships during their respective careers.
Returning to the lineup from the team that earned a fifth-place finish at the NCAA Central Regional at the Warren Golf Course a year ago are LSU’s senior All-Americans Andrew Loupe and John Peterson, and juniors Austin Gutgsell and Sang Yi. Senior Ken Looper has also cracked LSU’s starting five after seeing action as an individual in NCAA Regional play at the University of New Orleans in 2009 and 2010.
Both Loupe and Peterson have enjoyed stellar senior seasons for the Tigers in 2010-11, as each received a First-Team All-SEC selection for the second time in their careers.
Loupe is the team’s leading scorer this spring as his 71.5 scoring average in 11 tournament appearances is a new career-low. With a team-leading four top-five, seven top-10 and 10 top-20 finishes to his credit this season, Loupe has earned a No. 19 ranking in Golfweek’s ranking of the top college golfers nationwide. It is a season highlighted by a tie for sixth place overall at the SEC Championships.
Loupe led the team to a berth into the NCAA Championships a year ago as he finished in a tie for sixth on the leaderboard at the NCAA Central Regional for his second-straight top-10 finish in regional play. Loupe also finished in a tie for ninth place overall at the NCAA South Central Regional in 2009.
Peterson follows Loupe with a No. 21 national ranking in Golfweek’s individual player rankings this year as he has also set a new career-low with a 71.6 scoring average in 11 tournament starts. Peterson has three top-five, seven top-10 and 10 top-20 finishes to his credit to help lead the way this season.
Peterson was most recently the SEC runner-up with his second-place finish at the SEC Championships, as he dropped a sudden-death playoff for the title after finishing in a tie for first place in 54 holes.
Peterson helped the Tigers earn a 24th-place finish in the final standings at the NCAA Championships last season as he became the first LSU Tiger since Perry Moss in 1991 to earn a top-10 finish in the tourney as he tied for sixth place en route to earning All-America honors for the second year in a row. Peterson fired a 5-under par 211 at the NCAA Championships held at The Honors Course in Chattanooga, Tenn.