The LSU men’s golf team will continue to look for stellar play from junior golfers John Peterson and Andrew Loupe, who carried the team through the fall portion of the 2009-10 season.Loupe and Peterson finished as the top two LSU golfers in every tournament this fall except the Brickyard Championship, where fellow junior Clayton Rotz enjoyed his best tournament of the fall.Both Loupe and Peterson have shaved nearly two strokes per round off their 2008-09 scoring averages, and both are ranked nationally in the top 55 collegiate golfers by Golfweek this season.The junior duo has combined to post 11 rounds under par. Both shot a low-round of 5-under par 66 and posted three top-five finishes for the Tigers this fall.The success of Peterson and Loupe, combined with the steady play of Rotz and sophomores Sang Yi and Josh Jones, have led to a top-10 finish in every event for the Tigers this season.The Tigers will look to build on the fall portion of their schedule when they resume play at the Gator Invitational in Gainesville, Fla., on Saturday, Feb. 13.”We certainly have areas in which we need to continue to work on and improve, but LSU golf is headed in the right direction,” said LSU men’s coach Chuck Winstead in a news release. “It’s fun for us to see this program grow, and we are just scratching the surface. Our guys set the bar high.”LSU played host to its first tournament in Baton Rouge since the LSU Spring Invitational in April 2005. The Tigers won the Spring Invitational that year and didn’t disappoint the home crowd this season.On the strength of 12 day-one birdies by Peterson, the Tigers pulled away to an early lead and clung on to it late to win the team championship by one stroke for the inaugural David Toms Intercollegiate.The team victory was bittersweet for Peterson, who held the individual lead for the majority of the tournament before giving way to Rice freshman Jade Scott.Scott shot a 6-under par 65 in the final round to dethrone Peterson.The Tigers will resume their season Feb. 13 in the Gator Invitational in Gainesville, Fla.LSU also received commitments from four of the top 50 high school golfers during the early signing period.LSU will welcome Franco Castro of Alpharetta, Ga., Smylie Kaufman of Birmingham, Ala., Andrew Presley of Fort Worth, Texas, and the top rated Louisiana prep golfer Landon Lyons of Episcopal High School in Baton Rouge.Meanwhile, the Lady Tigers made an addition of their own. Two-time AJGA Rolex All-American Austin Ernst of Seneca, S.C. signed a letter of intent to compete for the Lady Tigers in Fall of 2010.”We are excited to have [Ernst] join our team,” said LSU women’s coach Karen Bahnsen. “She is an excellent player and will add a lot of depth to our talented team.”The Lady Tigers started the 2009 season in grand fashion by winning the NGCA Match play championship, which pitted them against Southeastern Conference foe Auburn in the final round.They continued their hot streak into the Mason Rudolph Women’s Championship, which boasted 12 top-25 teams in the 17-team field.On the strength of solid play from junior Megan McChrystal and sophomore Tessa Teachman, LSU finished the tournament in sixth place. The Lady Tigers set a 36-hole scoring record in the process.The Lady Tigers climbed all the way to No. 4 in the NCAA rankings, but the flu sidelined both McChrystal and Teachman for the next event. The effect was profound on the Lady Tigers, who struggled without their top performers.Teachman didn’t play again in the fall after her performance at the Mason Rudolph Women’s Championship, but McChrystal was well enough to compete in the final event of the fall, which was the preview event for the NCAA championships at the Landfall Tradition in Wilmington, N.C.McChrystal shot a 4-over par 220 to make her impact felt immediately, but the team struggled as a whole. The Lady Tigers finished the event in a three-way tie for 11th place.”We didn’t finish the fall as well as we would’ve liked to,” Bahnsen said in a news release. “But I am very pleased with the things we did early in winning the Match Play and the way we played our second tournament … We look forward to the spring and a lot of exciting events.”
The Lady Tigers will resume play on Monday, Feb. 22 in Parrish, Fla., when they play in the Central District Invitational.—-Contact Luke Johnson at [email protected]