BATON ROUGE, La. – Powered by team score of 14-under par 270 in Arizona last week and ascending to the No. 4 spot in the national rankings, the LSU men’s golf team has earned the BASF Team Chemistry Award for the month of September.
Fueled by a record-setting tournament score and first collegiate title by sophomore All-American Luis Gagne, the LSU men’s golf team posted a team-record score of its own to take home a five-shot victory at the inaugural Maui Jim Intercollegiate after Sunday’s final round at Mirabel Golf Club.
The Tigers added a team score of 14-under par 270 in the final round to their 270 in Friday’s first round and 13-under 271 in Saturday’s second round to finish with a 54-hole total of 41-under par 811.
When the Tigers opened their 2016 spring season by winning the team title at The Prestige at PGA West with a final score of 26-under par 826, they eclipsed their previous school-record score of 21-under par set in the team’s fourth-place finish in the same event in 2015. They raised the bar by another 15 strokes this weekend at Mirabel Golf Club.
By winning their first team championship of the 2016 fall season at the Maui Jim Intercollegiate with their 41-under par 811, the Tigers posted the lowest 54-hole tournament score as a team since at least 1985.
The 2015 NCAA Champions are off to a flying start this fall as they won their first team title of the year and the 26th team championship in 12 seasons under head coach Chuck Winstead after opening the season with an impressive fourth-place finish at the Carpet Capital Collegiate Classic two weeks ago. LSU’s overall record now stands at 25-3 through its opening two events of 2016-17.
Gagne made it a clean sweep for LSU as he took home his first career individual title with a three-round total of 17-under par 196 to finish two shots clear of South Carolina’s Scott Stevens at the top of the leaderboard. He closed out the championship with a bogey-free round of 5-under 66 after firing back-to-back career-lows of 6-under 66 in both the first and second rounds.
He claimed his first collegiate championship on Sunday afternoon with a record-setting performance at the Maui Jim Intercollegiate to become LSU’s 18th individual champion during Winstead’s tenure.
Gagne’s winning effort of 17-under par 196 in three rounds played at Mirabel Golf Club not only smashed his previous tournament best of 1-under par posted three times last spring, but also eclipsed the previous best tournament score in a 54-hole event by any LSU Tiger since 1985 by five strokes. Zach Wright at the 2016 Prestige at PGA West and John Peterson at the 2009 Gary Koch Invitational both shot 12-under par in 54 holes of their respective career bests for the program’s previous best.
Gagne fired a bogey-free round of 5-under 66 on Sunday to close out a weekend in which he carded just two bogeys along with one eagle and 17 birdies in 54 holes played at the par-71 Mirabel Golf Club.
After finishing his freshman season in 2015-16 without a top-10 finish to his name in a 54-hole event, All-American Sam Burns has been quick out of the blocks in his sophomore season as he claimed his second-straight Top 10 with an eighth-place finish this weekend. He finished at 7-under par with a three-day total of 206 that included a 3-under 68 in the final round.
Burns, who tied for sixth place in LSU’s season opener at the Carpet Capital Collegiate Classic two weeks ago, is now a cumulative 15-under par with a scoring average of 69.0 strokes per round in six rounds this fall.
Each of the five members of LSU’s lineup finished among the Top 20 of the leaderboard at the Maui Jim Intercollegiate this weekend as Gagne and Burns were followed by senior Brandon Pierce in a tie for ninth place, sophomore Nathan Jeansonne in a tie for 13th place and senior Eric Ricard in a tie for 18th place overall.
Pierce matched Gagne’s effort with a bogey-free 5-under 66 of his own Sunday as he birdied the par-four third and fourth holes on the front nine and par-four 10th, par-four 15th and par-five 17th holes on the back nine to tie for the team’s low round of the day. He tied for ninth place overall at 6-under par for the championship after also posting a 1-under 70 on Friday and even-par 71 on Saturday.
Jeansonne and Ricard both broke par with matching scores of 1-under 70 in the final round as Jeansonne tied for 13th place at 5-under 208 and Ricard followed in a tie for 18th place at 2-under 211 for the weekend.
The Bushnell Golfweek Coaches’ Top 25 poll advanced the Tigers from seventh all the way to fourth, and is one of two SEC teams currently in the top 25.
About BASF
As the world’s largest chemical company, BASF’s manufacturing presence in Louisiana includes operations in Geismar, Zachary and Vidalia, with nearly 2,000 employees and contractors in the state. For more information about careers at BASF, visit www.basf.us/la.