ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — The 2009 SEC Men’s Golf Championships makes its return to Frederica Golf Club this weekend as the 17th-ranked Tigers are set to tee it up in the nation’s most competitive conference championship in Friday’s first round beginning at 7 a.m. CT.
This marks the second year in a row that the SEC Championships will be played at Frederica Golf Club as the course is set to a par-72 layout and 7,217 yards for the three-day, 54-hole tournament.
The championship has actually called St. Simons Island home for the past eight years as the event was contested at the Seaside Course at nearby Sea Island Golf Club from 2001-07.
Frederica Golf Club was the site of last year’s SEC Men’s Golf Championships when LSU posted a tie for eighth place in the team standings. Alabama won the conference title in 2008 by a total of seven shots over South Carolina and will look to defend its crown against one of the strongest and deepest fields to compete at the SEC Championships in recent history.
LSU is one of six teams from the Southeastern Conference ranked among the top 17 nationally in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index released earlier this week. The Tigers are joined by No. 1 Georgia, No. 7 Florida, No. 10 Alabama, No. 11 South Carolina and No. 13 Arkansas.
The Tigers are paired with Florida and Arkansas in Friday’s first round as they will tee it up from the front nine beginning at 7 a.m. CT.
LSU enters the weekend as one of the hottest teams in the SEC with three tournament titles under its belt, marking the first time since 2003-04 that the Tigers have won three events in a season. They are fresh off a win at the Reunion Intercollegiate in Jackson, Miss., on April 7 of last week, while they have also won team championships at the Gopher Invitational in Wayzata, Minn., back on Sept. 14 and the John Hayt Invitational in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., on Feb. 24.
LSU head coach Chuck Winstead has elected to compete with the same lineup that brought home the victory at the Reunion Intercollegiate just 10 days ago.
Sophomores Andrew Loupe, John Peterson and Clayton Rotz will team with freshmen Josh Jones and Sang Yi this weekend to form perhaps the youngest five-man lineup that will be competing at the SEC Men’s Golf Championships. LSU’s sophomore trio makes its return to Frederica after competing as freshmen a year ago, while Jones and Yi will play the course for the first time.
Peterson has caught fire this spring with an impressive three top-five finishes in his last four event appearances and is the 37th-ranked college golfer in the country in the latest individual rankings in Golfweek. He is the Tigers’ top returning finisher from the SEC Championships in 2008 when the Fort Worth native finished in a tie for 25th place in his championship debut.
After winning his first career individual title at the John Hayt Invitational and back-to-back third-place finishes at the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate and Reunion Intercollegiate under his belt this spring, Peterson is riding a wave of momentum as he enters the SEC Championships.
Yi is also ranked among the Top 100 players in the country in the latest Golfweek ranking at No. 85 this week. Like Peterson, Yi has also finished in the top five in each of his last two tournament appearances, while both golfers lead the team with three Top 10 finishes on the season.
Both Loupe and Rotz are also looking to improve upon their performance at the SEC tournament a year ago when tied for 37th and Rotz tied for 59th in their first career appearance.
After Friday’s opening round, competitors at this year’s SEC Men’s Golf Championships will tee it up in the second round on Saturday followed by the final round on Sunday. The 2009 SEC champion will be crowned in a brief ceremony following the final round. Live scoring is available through Golfstat and can be found on the organization’s official website at www.golfstat.com.