The LSU men’s golf team wasn’t on par this weekend at the John Hayt Intercollegiate Invitational in Ponte Vedra, Fla., where the Tigers shot 23-over in the three-day event for a disappointing eighth-place finish after coming in second at the Isleworth Invitational last week.
“We need to get better,” said LSU coach Chuck Winstead. “We need to not give away as many shots off the tees and unforced errors.”
Despite the final day of the tournament being LSU’s best statistical round of the weekend, the Tigers weren’t able to hold on at Sawgrass.
LSU was just eight shots off the lead at the start of the final day, but late heroics by Arkansas and a 3-over-par performance by the Tigers left LSU 15 strokes behind the champion Razorbacks.
Senior Sang Yi led the Tigers for the entirety of the tournament, shooting five-under-par in the first round for a top-5 finish on the weekend.
Yi’s seven birdies on day one put him at the top of the leaderboard along with signs of promise for the Texas native.
The only major blemish on Yi’s scorecard was a double bogey on the seventeenth hole of the last day.
“Sang had a great event,” Winstead said. “He had a pretty good second round and just a poor tee shot on 17 [in the third round].”
Yi’s bad shot off the tee put him in a difficult spot for the rest of the 442-yard par-4.
Yi and sophomore Andrew Presley were the only Tigers in the event who had ever played at Sawgrass Country Club, and both led the way for LSU, with Presley scoring a 7-over-par.
Sophomores Franco Castro and Smylie Kaufman scored a one-under and two-over-par on the final day, respectively. Castro logged an eight-over-par and Kaufman notched an eleven-over total for the weekend. Freshman Curtis Thompson shot 14-over-par to round out the Tiger golfers.
“Youth is a factor in general when young guys play and haven’t seen the course before,” Winstead said. “[Tuesday] was better for the younger guys since they had seen the course a couple times.”
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Contact Michael Gegenheimer at [email protected]
Men’s Golf: Tigers take eighth at Florida invitational
By Michael Gegenheimer
Sports Writer
Sports Writer
February 28, 2012