BATON ROUGE – After receiving PING All-Southeast Region honors just one week ago, LSU juniors Andrew Loupe and John Peterson were honored for their performance once again on Wednesday with the title of PING Honorable Mention All-Americans announced by the Golf Coaches Association of America.
Peterson has earned All-American honors for the second-straight season as he was named a Second-Team All-American by both PING and Golfweek in 2009, while Loupe has achieved All-America status for the first time in his three-year career at LSU as one of the premier players in the country.
Their selection on Wednesday marks the first time that LSU has had two golfers earn All-America honors in the same season since David Toms (first team) and Greg Lesher (second team) in 1989.
The duo helped fuel the Tigers to a 24th-place finish this week at this year’s NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships, marking LSU’s first appearance in the event since the 1997 season. With its performance, LSU was the second-highest finishing team in the SEC at the NCAA Championships.
Peterson was impressive in his first NCAA Championships experience as he tied for sixth place overall in the individual standings while firing a 54-hole score of 5-under par 211 at The Honors Course in Chattanooga, Tenn., including a 4-under 68 in the second round and a 2-under 70 in the final round of the stroke play competition. He is the first LSU golfer since Perry Moss in 1991 to earn a Top 10 finish at the NCAA Championships while firing the lowest score in relation to par since at least 1985.
Peterson’s best performance of the season came at the Gary Koch Invitational on Oct. 3-4 where he was a third-place finisher with the lowest tournament score by an LSU Tiger in more than 25 years at 12-under. He finished in second on the team with a 72.3 scoring average with two Top 10 and five Top 20 finishes.
Loupe proved to be a leader on the course for the Tigers in 2009-10 as he wrapped up the year as the team leader with a career-low 72.0 scoring average to go along with six Top 10s and eight Top 20s.
Loupe, who ranks No. 44 in the latest Golfweek ranking of the Top 100 college golfers in the nation, won First-Team All-SEC honors for the first time in his career after guiding the Tigers to a fifth-place finish at the 2010 SEC Men’s Golf Championships by tying for fourth place in the individual standings with a total of 3-under par 208 at the Seaside Course at Sea Island Golf Club in St. Simons Island, Ga.
Not only that, but Loupe followed his performance at the SEC Championships with another Top 10 finish at the NCAA Central Regional held at The Warren Course in South Bend, Ind., as he led the Tigers to the NCAA Championships by tying for sixth place on the leaderboard with a 2-under 208.
A native of Baton Rouge, Loupe finished in the Top 10 of the leaderboard in five of 10 tournaments since the start of the spring season, including his first career individual victory at the Louisiana Classics back in March with a season-low and career-low tournament score of 8-under par 208.
This also marks the first time that LSU has had a First-Team All-SEC and All-America performer in back to back seasons since 1995-96 and 1996-97.