BATON ROUGE – After wrapping up the 2010-11 campaign with four tournament victories and its second-straight appearance at the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships, the Tigers picked up two Top 15 national rankings in the final power rankings released by both Golfstat and Golfweek.
The Tigers are ranked No. 11 in the final Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index of the year, while they are also ranked No. 15 in the final Golfstat Top 25 released in the wake of the NCAA Championships.
LSU enjoyed a tremendous 2010-11 campaign in which it captured four tournament titles for the first time since David Toms’ senior season in 1988-89. That includes victories at the Gopher Invitational (Sept. 12-13), David Toms Intercollegiate (Oct. 18-19), Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate (March 27-29) and LSU National Invitational (April 2-3) before kicking off postseason play at the SEC Championships.
The Tigers then earned a fifth-place finish at the SEC Championships for their third-straight top five with the event. They also advanced to the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships for the second straight season following a fourth-place team finish at the NCAA East Regional hosted by Virginia Tech.
The team improved upon its 24th-place finish at the NCAA Championships in 2010 by finishing the event in 21st place in its season finale at Oklahoma State’s Karsten Creek in Stillwater.
Senior John Peterson capped a historic season in his own right as he was crowned NCAA Champion with his performance in three days of stroke play for the national championship at Karsten Creek.
Peterson fired a 5-under par 211 to take home the national crown by one stroke over Golfweek’s Player of the Year and Jack Nicklaus Award winner Patrick Cantlay of UCLA, a performance which featured a course record and career-low 7-under par 65 during the second round of the championship. With his effort at the NCAA Championships, earned All-America honors for the third time in his collegiate career.
In winning this year’s NCAA crown, Peterson snapped a 70-year drought as the first Tiger to take home a national title at the NCAA Men’s Golf Championships since Haas in 1937 and Stewart in 1941.
The Fort Worth native earned PING First-Team All-American and Golfweek Second-Team All-American honors, in addition to his second career First-Team All-SEC accolade following a runner-up finish to lead the Tigers to their finish at the SEC Men’s Golf Championships.
Peterson is just the fifth three-time All-American in the program’s storied history, as list that also features past greats as Eddie Merrins (1952-54), B.R. McLendon (1965-67), Rob McNamara (1985-87) and David Toms (1987-89). He is also the ninth different Tiger to be named a First-Team All-American.
This actually marks the second year in a row in which two Tigers have received All-American recognition for their performance on the course as senior Andrew Loupe wrapped up his LSU career with a Golfweek Honorable Mention All-America honor. The two-time First-Team All-SEC performer was also selected as an Honorable Mention All-American by both PING and Golfweek after his junior season in 2009-10.
Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index (as of June 7)
1. Oklahoma State, 69.74
2. Georgia Tech, 69.90
3. UCLA, 70.00
4. Alabama, 70.15
5. Texas A&M, 70.54
6. Florida, 70.61
7. Illinois, 70.65
8. Augusta State, 70.77
9. San Diego State, 70.92
10. Georgia, 70.94
11. LSU, 70.95
12. Duke, 70.97
13. Texas, 70.98
14. Auburn, 71.03
15. Arkansas, 71.13
16. Southern California, 71.22
17. Iowa, 71.23
18. Texas Tech, 71.27
19. California, 71.32
20. Stanford, 71.37
21. Virginia, 71.40
22. Oregon, 71.51
23. Ohio State, 71.60
24. San Diego, 71.64
25. Tennessee, 71.66
Golfstat Top 25 (as of June 9)
1. Oklahoma State
2. UCLA
3. Georgia Tech
4. Alabama
5. Illinois
6. Texas A&M
7. Augusta State
8. Georgia
9. Iowa
10. Texas
11. Duke
12. San Diego State
13. Southern California
14. Florida
15. LSU
16. Auburn
17. Arkansas
18. California
19. Ohio State
20. Texas Tech
21. Stanford
22. Virginia
23. San Diego
24. Arizona State
25. Oregon