BATON ROUGE – With senior Ben Taylor in the midst of another All-American season and sophomore Brandon Pierce off to a flying start in 2015, both members of the LSU Men’s Golf team have been recognized for their efforts in the first Palmer Cup Rankings of the spring season released Thursday by the Golf Coaches Association of America.
Taylor cracks the list as the No. 20-ranked player for Team Europe and Pierce checks in as the No. 22-ranked player for Team USA in the debut ranking of the 2015 spring season as the sides will square off June 12-14 in the annual Ryder-Cup style tournament that will be held at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Illinois.
The Palmer Cup is an annual intercontinental championship in the spirit of the Ryder Cup featuring the top American and top European golfers competing at the collegiate level each season.
According to the GCAA’s official statement regarding Palmer Cup selection, the Palmer Cup Ranking is based on Golfstat’s NCAA Player Rankings and awards bonus points for wins and high finishes and negative points for poor finishes in collegiate competition. The ranking calculation also contains a player’s strength-of-schedule as a component when determining his position.
Thanks to his strong start to the 2015 spring season, Pierce emerged from his appearance at the Querencia Cabo Collegiate this week as the No. 28-ranked collegiate player nationally in the latest Golfstat rankings. He’s posted a team-leading 70.83 scoring average in two tournament starts this spring, tying for 10th place at The Prestige at PGA West with a career-low tournament score of 7-under par 209 from Feb. 16-18 before claiming a tie for 20th place at the Querencia Cabo Collegiate that ended earlier this week.
Taylor follows Pierce as LSU’s second-leading scorer for the 2014-15 season while averaging 72.27 strokes per round in his five tournament appearances for the Tigers. Taylor’s senior season has been highlighted by his first collegiate victory as an LSU Tiger at the David Toms Intercollegiate and a tie for fifth place at the Golfweek Conference Challenge while leading the Tigers to both team titles during the 2014 fall season.
The top six golfers in the final ranking for both the United States and Europe will automatically be selected among the 10 players for each team competing at the 2015 Palmer Cup at Rich Harvest Farms in June.
The remaining four players for the United States will be selected using three committee picks and one coaches pick, while the final four spots for the European team will consist of the champion of The R&A Foundation Scholars Tournament, two committee picks and one coaches pick.
Selections by their respective committees might take into account a number of factors, including their current college season, results in amateur events since the last Palmer Cup, match play record and performance in previous international team events. One of the U.S. committee picks must be a non-Division I golfer, while the European committee may select college golfers competing in either the United States or Europe.
The next Palmer Cup Ranking for the 2015 spring season will be announced on March 19. For more information on the Palmer Cup, visit the tournament’s official website at http://www.palmercup.org.
Palmer Cup Ranking (as of March 5, 2015)
Team USA
1. Ollie Schniederjans, Georgia Tech
2. Lee McCoy, Georgia
3. Maverick McNealy, Stanford
4. Hunter Stewart, Vanderbilt
5. Kyle Jones, Baylor
6. Charlie Danielson, Illinois
7. Matt Gilchrest, Auburn
8. Robby Shelton, Alabama
9. Will Starke, South Carolina
10. Will Zalatoris, Wake Forest
11. Sean Crocker, Southern California
12. Xander Schauffele, San Diego State
13. Rico Hoey, Southern California
14. Beau Hossler, Texas
15. Jonathan Garrick, UCLA
16. Jack Maguire, Florida State
17. Hank Lebioda, Florida State
18. Brian Campbell, Illinois
19. Ben Griffin, North Carolina
20. Derek Bard, Virginia
21. Jimmy Beck, Illinois
22. Brandon Pierce, LSU
23. John Oda, UNLV
24. Zach Seabolt, Winthrop
25. Ryan Benton, Auburn
Team Europe
1. Jon Rahm, Arizona State
2. Max Rottluff, Arizona State
3. Rowin Caron, Florida State
4. Clement Sordet, Texas Tech
5. Adrian Meronk, East Tennessee State
6. Kristoffer Ventura, Oklahoma State
7. Petter Mikalsen, Denver
8. Thomas Detry, Illinois
9. Tomasz Anderson, Jacksonville State
10. Teremoana Beaucousin, Kennesaw State
11. Adria Arnaus, Texas A&M
12. Paul Barjon, TCU
13. Andreas Gjesteby, Baylor
14. Jeremy Paul, Colorado
15. Grant Forrest, San Diego
16. David Boote, Stanford
17. Pep Angles, Central Arkansas
18. Antoine Rozner, Missouri-Kansas City
19. Scott Fernandez, Iowa State
20. Ben Taylor, LSU
21. Martin Simonsen, UTEP
22. Ben Wheeler, Coastal Carolina
23. Paul Dunne, UAB
24. Hannes Ronneblad, Texas Tech
25. Robin Sciot-Siegrist, Louisville