BATON ROUGE – Coming off a strong winning performance in the Louisiana Classics in Lafayette early in the week, the No. 7 LSU men’s golf team looks to keep the positive momentum going as they travel to California for the Pauma Valley Invitational in the San Diego, California area.
The tournament will be played at the Pauma Valley Country Club, a Robert Trent Jones designed course that plays to a par of 71 and as long as 7,300 yards.
The Tigers stopped the three-year championship run of Texas A&M on Tuesday at Oakbourne Country Club with Alfons Bondesson dropping in a lengthy birdie putt on the downhill par 3 final hole to clinch the team championship for the Tigers.
It not only clinched the team title, it put him into a tie for first for the individual title. Bondesson, who was named the SEC Golfer of the Week, posted a 54-hole total of 9-under par 207 (70-69-68).
Arni Sveinsson earned SEC Freshman of the Week honors with his T6 finish as he helped the Tigers victory cause with rounds of 72-68-72 for a 4-under par score of 2012.
Both Bondesson and Sveinsson are in the Tiger lineup as the No. 7 Tigers and host Loyola Marymount will face a stiff test of teams taking part in the tournament.
Six of the top seven teams in the Scoreboard by Clippd NCAA Rankings are in the field making this one of the top events so far this spring. Joining the Tigers are: No. 2 Arizona State, No. 3 Ole Miss, No. 4 Texas, No. 5 Oklahoma State, No. 6 Oklahoma, No. 13 Illinois, No. 15 San Diego State, No. 21 Georgia Tech, No. 28 SMU, No. 30 Tennessee and No. 33 San Diego. Host Loyola Marymount and San Francisco make up the rest of the field.
Joining Sveinsson and Bondesson in the LSU lineup for the event are sophomore Jay Mendell, Noah McWilliams and Algot Kleen who is returning to the Tigers lineup after sitting out the Louisiana Classics to rest up for the big push of spring events ahead.
The Tigers win in Lafayette gave LSU three team titles, two in the fall and one in the spring, as well as three individual titles by Kleen, Sveinsson and Bondesson under first-year LSU Coach Jake Amos.
The Tigers are scheduled to play with Oklahoma, Georgia Tech and Texas as the teams will play in foursomes in the shotgun 36 holes on Monday. Live scoring will be available at scoreboard.clippd.com website and the Pauma Valley tab.