BATON ROUGE – The No. 4-ranked LSU Men’s Golf team is ready to shake off the rust from its winter break and defend its team championship at The Prestige at PGA West as the 2017 spring season kicks off with the 17th-annual event beginning with Monday’s opening round at the Greg Norman Course at PGA West in La Quinta, California.
Stanford and UC-Davis are serving as co-hosts of the three-day, 54-hole event as tee times are scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. CT on each day of the event with the course playing to a par 72 and 7,156 yards.
Golfstat will provide live scoring of the tournament as fans can follow the Tigers in action by going online to http://golfstat.com. Fans can also receive live updates and behind-the-scenes coverage of the Tigers teeing it up on the West Coast this week by following @LSUMensGolf on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lsumensgolf and @lsumensgolfteam on Instagram at http://instagram.com/lsumensgolfteam.
LSU In The Rankings
Following an impressive fall campaign, the Tigers are ranked as high as No. 4 nationally in the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index heading into the spring season as the top-ranked team in the field this week.
The Tigers have also cracked the Top 10 in the No. 9 spot in the latest Bushnell Golfweek Division I Coaches Poll released Friday ahead of Monday’s opening round, as well as checking in at No. 16 in the most recent Top 25 power rankings announced by Golfstat last Tuesday. LSU is among five Top 25 and six Top 30 teams competing at The Prestige at PGA West this week.
The Field
While the Tigers headline a field of 13 teams at PGA West as the fourth-ranked team nationally ahead of their spring opener, they will defend their team title against the likes of No. 6-ranked Texas Tech, no. 10-ranked Stanford, No. 12-ranked Oklahoma, No. 17-ranked San Diego State and No. 27-ranked Arizona State. Rounding out the field are East Tennessee State, Iowa State, Pepperdine, Saint Mary’s, San Diego, UC-Davis and the University of Stirling making the trip from Scotland.
LSU is paired with Arizona State and a host of individuals in Monday’s opening round as they tee off from the front nine beginning at 11:20 a.m. CT. Pairings for the second and third rounds will be determined based on the results following each round.
Last Season
LSU was crowned the team champion at The Prestige at PGA West a season ago with school-record scores of 19-under par 265 in the final round and 26-under par 826 in 54 holes on the Greg Norman Course to finish 18 shots ahead of Arizona State for the win. Former Tiger All-American Zach Wright also captured the individual title with a winning score of 12-under par 201 to complete the tournament sweep for LSU.
The Tigers have since broken their school record for a tournament this fall at the Maui Jim Intercollegiate where they posted at 41-under 811 in 54 holes played at Mirabel Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Sam Burns, Nathan Jeansonne, Brandon Pierce and Eric Ricard also featured in the title-winning lineup at the 16th-annual Prestige at PGA West a year ago. Pierce joined Wright in the Top 10 of the final leaderboard with a final score of 5-under 208, while Burns and Ricard both tied one another for 14th place at 1-under 212 and Jeansonne tied for 19th place at 1-over 214.
The Lineup
Burns, Jeansonne and Ricard all make their return to the lineup this week to lead LSU’s team title defense as they are joined by sophomore Luis Gagne and freshman Philip Barbaree. This marks the LSU’s sixth event of the season as Burns, Ricard and Gagne have appeared in each of the previous five tournaments of the collegiate season, while Jeansonne is set to make his fifth start of his sophomore season.
Barbaree, a January enrollee at LSU after signing with the Tigers in November as arguably the No. 1 junior golfer in the country, makes his collegiate debut at The Prestige at PGA West. Junior Blake Caldwell will also tee it up in the event as an individual while making his second appearance for the Tigers in 2016-17.
Burns continues to lead the Tigers as the No. 2-ranked player in the country in the latest Golfstat individual player rankings while owning a team-low 69.00 scoring average with 17 of his 18 rounds at par or better.
Gagne checks in as the No. 87-ranked player nationally in the Golfstat rankings while ranking second on the team with a 70.78 scoring average and 10 of his 18 rounds at par or better. Jeansonne tees off this week with a 71.83 scoring average in his four previous starts, while Ricard averages 72.33 strokes per round and Caldwell scores 76.67 strokes per round in his only appearance of the fall.
Up Next
After opening their 2017 spring season with a title defense at The Prestige at PGA West running through Wednesday’s final round, the Tigers follow next week with the short trip to Lafayette, Louisiana, to compete for the crown at the Louisiana Classic running Feb. 27-28 at Oakbourne Country Club. An appearance at the General Hackler Championship then awaits March 11-12 at Dunes Golf Club in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.