No. 7 Tigers Lead At Pauma Valley; Suspended 2nd Round Has Mendell T1

BATON ROUGE – The No. 7 LSU men’s golf team posted two solid under par rounds and had the advantage after 36 holes of the Pauma Valley Classic outside San Diego, California on Monday.

Some of the teams did not complete the second round according to unofficial scoring totals but the round and the third and final round will be completed on Tuesday.

LSU was able to get through their rounds and followed a 9-under 275 opening 18 holes with a good 7-under 277 for a 36-hole total of 16-under par 552.

The Tiges lead No. 5 Oklahoma State, which is 7-under for the tournament, playing holes 14-16 of the second round. The Cowboys were 5-under in the opening round and stood at 2-under on the second round. Number 30 Tennessee is also playing 14-16 and is at -6 after a -9 opening 18 holes. The Volunteers are listed at +3 in the second round.

No. 4 Texas is tied with Tennessee at 6-under but one player in the group has not been scored at all in the second round, that score could change. Illinois, No. 13, is done with two rounds and is 4-under par after rounds of 281 and 283 for 564.

Unofficially LSU sophomore Jay Mendell, from Lafayette, is tied for the lead after back-to-back rounds of 3-under 68. He is tied with Illinois’ Ryan Voois, ranked No. 132 in the NCAA performance rankings, who is also at -6 136 after rounds of 69-67. Calum Scott of Texas Tech was still on the course as darkness hit, at 5-under par through 14 holes of his second round.

In the opening round, the Tigers counted four-under par scores on the par 71, 7,311 layout. LSU’s two Louisiana natives – Mendell and Noah McWilliams – both shot 68 (3-under). Mendell had six birdies in the first 18 holes, while McWilliams had four birdies in his round. Arni Sveinsson had five birdies in a 2-under 69 round and Alfons Bondesson, coming off his win in the Louisiana Classics, finished at 1-under par 70.

In the second round, while individual complete hole-by-hole totals were available late Monday, Algot Kleen came through with the best round of the afternoon with a 4-under par 67. He moved up at the end of the day, some 35 places on the leaderboard to crack the present top 10 as posted shortly after 9:30 CT.

Sveinsson posted 1-under 70 and Bondesson was the final counting score at 1-over 72. Sveinsson is a group tied for seventh at 3-under par 139.

The tournament will conclude on Tuesday (the second round will finish and then a shotgun start at Noon CT will be used for the third round). Live scoring is at the Scoreboard.clippd.com website at the Pauma Valley tab.

Pauma Valley Invitational
San Diego, California – Pauma Valley Golf Club
Second Round Results (Unofficial as round not completed as of darkness)
(Par 284-568)
1 No. 7 LSU – 275-277 – 532 -16
2 No. 5 Oklahoma State – 279- (-2 thru 14-16) — -7
3 No. 30 Tennessee – 275-(+3 thru 14-16) — -6
3 No. 4 Texas – 276-(+2 thru 0-18) — -6
5 No 13 Illinois – 281-283 – 564 -4
6 No. 6 Oklahoma – 288-(-7 thru 0-18) — -3
7 No. 26 Texas Tech – 279-(+3 thru 14-18) — -2
8 No. 3 Ole Miss – 283-(+4 thru 14-16) — +3
9 No. 21 Georgia Tech – 292-(-3 thru 0-18) — +5
10 No. 2 Arizona State – 282-292 – 574 +6
10 No. 15 San Diego State – 286-(+4 thru 14-18) — +6
12 No. 33 San Diego – 287-292 – 579 +11
13 No. 28 SMU – 291-(+6 thru 14-16) — +13
14 Loyola Marymount – 292-291 – 583 +15
15 San Francisco – 288-(+12 thru 14-16) — +16

LSU SCORES (Unofficial with second round not finished)
T1 Jay Mendell – 68-68 – 136 -6
T7 Arni Sveinsson – 69-70 – 139 -3
T7 Algot Kleen – 72-67 – 139 -3
T26 Alfons Bondesson – 70-72 – 142 E
T46 Noah McWilliams – 68-78 – 146 +4