BATON ROUGE – On the strength of winning the individual title at The Prestige at PGA West in LSU’s spring season opener, senior All-American Zach Wright cracked the Top 20 nationally as the 18th-ranked American in college golf in the first Arnold Palmer Cup Ranking released Thursday by the Golf Coaches Association of America.
The top six golfers in the final ranking to be released on April 15 from both the United States and Europe will be among the individuals selected to compete in this summer’s Palmer Cup being held June 24-26 at Formby Golf Club in Formby, Merseyside, England.
The Arnold Palmer Cup Ranking uses Golfstat’s NCAA Player Ranking as its base for ranking the Top 25 Americans and Top 25 Europeans while awarding bonus points for wins and high finishes and negative points for poor finishes in amateur events. The ranking also uses a strength of schedule component as part of its biweekly calculations.
Wright is currently the No. 26-ranked player in college golf regardless of nationality in the latest Golfstat power rankings released Tuesday following his appearance at the Querencia Cabo Collegiate.
A Second-Team All-SEC selection and PING Honorable Mention All-American a year ago, Wright is in the midst of another All-American season as a senior in 2015-16 as the team’s top performer to date. He opened this spring season with a two-shot victory at The Prestige at PGA West where he won his second career individual title with a career-low score of 12-under par 201 for 54 holes. Wright leads the Tigers with his three top-five and four top-10 finishes this season while posting a team-low scoring average of 71.29 strokes per round.
Arnold Palmer Cup Ranking (as of March 3)
United States
Player, School, Percentage
1. Beau Hossler, Texas, 1.0000
2. Maverick McNealy, Stanford, .9990
3. Robby Shelton, Alabama, .9981
4. Michael Johnson, Auburn, .9966
5. Charlie Danielson, Illinois, .9966
6. Rico Hoey, Southern California, .9962
7. Tyler McDaniel, Kentucky, .9952
8. David Kocher, Maryland, .9942
9. Aaron Wise, Oregon, .9928
10. Lee McCoy, Georgia, .9928
11. Austin Eoff, Purdue, .9923
12. Nick Hardy, Illinois, .9913
13. Collin Morikawa, California, .9899
14. Hand Lebioda, Florida State, .9894
15. Stephen Behr, Clemson, .9879
16. Patrick Martin, Vanderbilt, .9841
17. Nahum Mendoza III, San Diego State, .9840
18. Zach Wright, LSU, .9836
19. Jonah Texeira, Southern California, .9836
20. Will Zalatoris, Wake Forest, .9817
21. Greyson Sigg, Georgia, .9812
22. Sean Walsh, Gonzaga, .9798
23. Adam Wood, Duke, .9783
24. Corey Pereira, Washington, .9778
25. Doug Ghim, Texas, .9778
Europe
Player, School, Country, Percentage
1. Lars van Meijel, Memphis, The Netherlands, .9976
2. Sam Horsfield, Florida, England, .9894
3. Thomas Perrot, Memphis, France, .9894
4. Matthias Schwab, Vanderbilt, Austria, .9850
5. Antoine Rozner, Missouri-Kansas City, France, .9831
6. Adrian Meronk, East Tennessee State, Poland, .9831
7. Aksel Olsen, South Florida, Norway, .9793
8. Thomas Detry, Illinois, Belgium, .9783
9. Hannes Ronneblad, Texas Tech, Sweden, .9749
10. Robin Sciot-Siegrist, Louisville, France, .9744
11. David Boote, Stanford, Wales, .9710
12. Riccardo Michelini, San Diego State, Italy, .9701
13. Robin Petersson, Augusta, Sweden, .9363
14. Paul McBride, Wake Forest, Ireland, .9608
15. Max Rottluff, Arizona State, Germany, .9570
16. Martin Eriksson, McNeese State, Sweden, .9363
17. Jeremy Paul, Colorado, Germany, .9358
18. Hurly Long, Texas Tech, Germany, .9334
19. Franck Medale, Jacksonville, France, .9319
20. Adria Arnaus, Texas A&M, Spain, .9285
21. Giulio Castagnara, TCU, Italy, .9265
22. Tom Harris, Maryland, England, .9184
23. JJ Grey, Georgia State, England, .9173
24. David Wicks, Jacksonville, England, .9156
25. Cameron Shaw, California, England, .9114