BATON ROUGE – The No. 9-ranked LSU men’s golf team will join 29 other programs from across the country at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla., this week as they prepare to compete at the 2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships beginning with Tuesday’s opening round.
The Tigers are competing for a national championship for the second-straight season after earning a place in the 30-team field at the NCAA Championships in 2010 and 2011.
Oklahoma State University will play host to this year’s championship as Karsten Creek Golf Club is set to play to a par 72 and 7,407 yards for the event that will be contested over the next six days.
The top five teams in six regional tournaments were selected to compete at the NCAA Championship this week. The Tigers earned their place in the field after picking up a fourth-place finish in the Virginia Tech Regional held May 19-21 at the Pete Dye River Course of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
Teams will compete against one another in three rounds of medal play beginning Tuesday morning. After wrapping up 54 holes of medal play on Thursday, 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 that will crown this year’s national champion.
The quarterfinals of the match play tournament will be held on Friday, followed by the semifinal round on Saturday and the national championship match on Sunday.
The Tigers will tee off as the No. 10 overall seed in the 30-team field while they will be joined in order of seeding in the Top 10 by No. 1 Oklahoma State, No. 2 UCLA, No. 3 Alabama, No. 4 Georgia Tech, No. 5 Florida, No. 6 Augusta State, No. 7 San Diego State, No. 8 Texas A&M and No. 9 Illinois.
Rounding out this year’s NCAA Championship field are No. 11 Texas, No. 12 Georgia, No. 13 Iowa, No. 14 Duke, No. 15 Michigan, No. 16 Southern California, No. 17 Arkansas, No. 18 California, No. 19 San Diego, No. 20 NC State, No. 21 Oklahoma, No. 22 Arizona State, No. 23 Ohio State, No. 24 Tennessee, No. 25 Kent State, No. 26 Kennesaw State, No. 27 Pepperdine, No. 28 Northwestern, No. 29 Arizona and No. 30 Colorado State. Tee times for the first round are set to begin Thursday at 7 a.m.
The Tigers will tee off in the afternoon wave on Tuesday and the morning wave on Wednesday as they’re paired with No. 11 seed Texas and No. 12 seed Georgia in the first and second rounds. They will tee off at the front nine Tuesday beginning at 1:30 p.m. CDT and at the back nine Wednesday at 8:10 a.m.
This marks the third season in which the NCAA will crown its men’s golf national champion using such a single-elimination match play format after using 72 holes of stroke play in previous seasons.
Texas A&M defeated Arkansas in the national championship match, 3-2, in the format’s inaugural season in 2009. Augusta State earned a 3-1-1 victory over Oklahoma State in the final match to take the title with their performance in 2010 as the Jaguars will tee it up this week as the defending national champions.
Live scoring of this year’s championships can be found online at www.NCAA.com. LSU fans also have a chance to receive additional coverage of the Tigers competing during the event by liking LSU Men’s Golf on Facebook and following @LSUMensGolf on Twitter.
The Tigers are making their 33rd appearance all-time at the NCAA Championships and their second in as many seasons. LSU has a rich history and tradition at the NCAA Championships as they have won a total of four national championships while earning 19 Top 10 finishes all-time in the event. The Tigers finished in 24th place overall in the final team standings last season at The Honors Course in Chattanooga, Tenn.
LSU is one of 15 teams in this year’s 30-team field that has won at least one national championship in the event, and one of 16 teams in this year’s field with at least one individual national champion all-time.
The Tigers captured their four national championships in 1940, 1942, 1947 and 1955. The two Tigers that have won the individual crown are Fred Haas, Jr. in 1937 and Earl Stewart in 1941.
Other national championship programs ready to compete for the team championship this weekend include (in alphabetical order) Arizona, Arizona State, Augusta State, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Pepperdine, Texas, Texas A&M and UCLA.
LSU’s senior All-American John Peterson returns to lead the Tigers at the NCAA Championships after becoming LSU’s first Top 10 performer in the event in 19 years when he tied for sixth place overall with his effort a season ago at The Honors Course. Peterson, this year’s SEC runner-up, fired a 5-under par 211 during the NCAA Championships in 2010 to become LSU’s first Top 10 finisher since Perry Moss in 1991.
Joining Peterson in this year’s NCAA Championships lineup for the Tigers are fellow senior All-America performer Andrew Loupe, as well as senior Ken Looper, junior Austin Gutgsell and junior Sang Yi.
It’s the same starting lineup that earned LSU a berth into the NCAA Championships with a fourth place at the NCAA East Regional held at Virginia Tech. The Tigers finished in fourth place overall in the 13-team field after posting a 54-hole team score of 16-over par 880 at the Pete Dye River Course.
In addition to Peterson, Loupe, Gutgsell and Yi are also ready to make their return to the national tourney, as each was part of the team that finished in 24th place in the field a season ago. While Peterson earned his tie for sixth place, Loupe tied for 72nd place, Gutgsell tied for 128th place and Yi tied for 135th place in the individual field in their first career NCAA Championships appearance.
Both Loupe and Peterson are strong contenders for All-America recognition for their performance in 2011 as Peterson ranks No. 20 and Loupe ranks No. 21 in Golfweek’s latest ranking of the nation’s top players.