BATON ROUGE – A busy weekend lies ahead for four former LSU Tigers as Andrew Loupe and David Toms are each set to tee off at the PGA TOUR’s Waste Management Phoenix Open and Smylie Kaufman and Curtis Thompson will both compete at the Web.com Tour’s Panama Claro Championship beginning with first rounds on Thursday morning.
Loupe and Toms have made the trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, to compete at the Waste Management Phoenix Open that runs through Sunday’s final round at the famed TPC Scottsdale.
Loupe, who earned his spot in the field by winning a four-man playoff for the last ticket after Monday qualifying earlier in the week, is paired with USA’s Michael Block and South Korea’s Sung Joon Park in the first and second rounds as he is scheduled to tee off Thursday at 10 a.m. CT on hole No. 1 and Friday at 2:10 p.m. on hole No. 10 ahead of the 36-hole cut.
After tying for 24th place at 15-under par for 72 holes at the Humana Challenge in his last appearance a week ago, Toms finds himself paired with American counterpart Stewart Cink and Australian Steven Bowditch over the first two rounds as they are scheduled to tee off at 1:34 p.m. CT on hole No. 1 in the first round and 9:24 a.m. on hole No. 10 in the second round with an eye on the weekend.
Toms is set to make his 14th career appearance at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, having made the cut in eight of his previous 13 starts at TPC Scottsdale with a career-best ninth-place finish in the 2001 event in 11-under par for 72 holes. Loupe is making his debut in the event after making the cut in each of his two previous PGA TOUR starts during the 2014-15 season.
Both Kaufman and Thompson are set to make their professional debuts as members of the Web.com Tour this weekend following their senior seasons with the Tigers a year ago when they helped lead the squad to its appearance in the Final Four of match play at the 2014 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships.
Despite missing the cut in his first PGA TOUR start at the Sony Hawaii Open two weeks ago, Thompson was recently named among the “12 Rookies to Watch” for the 2015 season on the Web.com Tour.
With the Panama Claro Championship being held at Panama Golf Club in Panama City, Panama, Thompson will tee off from hole No. 10 in Thursday’s first round at 11:30 a.m. CT and hole No. 1 at 6:35 a.m. in Friday’s second round as he is paired with USA’s Darron Stiles and Ireland’s Seamus Power. Kaufman is set to make his Web.com Tour debut during the tournament by teeing off in the first round at 11:50 a.m. CT from hole No. 1 and in the second round at 6:55 a.m. from hole No. 10 as he is paired with USA’s Jeff Corr and Erik Barnes.