BATON ROUGE – The LSU men’s golf program will be well-represented in Chattanooga, Tenn., this weekend as four Tiger alums will tee off in the field at the Nationwide Tour’s Children’s Hospital Classic beginning Thursday at Black Creek Golf Club near Black Creek Mountain.
Not only will PGA Tour and Nationwide Tour veterans Brian Bateman and Scott Sterling compete for the Children’s Hospital Classic title, but 2011 NCAA Champion John Peterson is set to make his professional debut and former Tiger star Andrew Loupe will compete in his first career Nationwide Tour event.
The par-72 Black Creek Golf Club will play host to the championship as the opening round is set to begin Thursday at 7 a.m. CDT. The $500,000 tournament features a $90,000 first prize for the champion.
During their four seasons at LSU from 2007-11, Loupe and Peterson helped form the most prolific duo on campus since David Toms and Greg Lesher in the late 1980s. Peterson captured three All-America honors and two First-Team All-SEC honors while wrapping up his collegiate career as an NCAA Champion after taking the individual title at the 2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships. Loupe claimed a pair of All-America honors and First-Team All-SEC accolades of his own with the Tigers.
Peterson is actually set to compete in his second Nationwide Tour event this season after finishing runner-up at the Children’s Hospital Invitational held July 21-24 at The Scarlet Course in Columbus, Ohio.
While still competing as an amateur, Peterson fired a 13-under par 271 in four rounds to finish a shot back of former Georgia star Harris English for the Nationwide Tour title. Because of Peterson’s amateur status, he missed out on a paycheck of nearly $100,000 in his first Nationwide Tour appearance. The Fort Worth native wrapped up his amateur career with a quarterfinals appearance at the U.S. Amateur.
Loupe started his professional career this summer with a runner-up finish at the Victoria Texas Open with his NGA Hooters Professional Tour debut at Victoria Country Club in Victoria, Texas. Loupe has already won nearly $40,000 in prize money as he is set to make his Nationwide Tour debut this weekend.