The LSU men’s golf team took care of business during the fall semester on the links, but its work in the classroom has garnered it its first award of the season. The Golf Coaches Association of America recognized the Tigers as one of the top academic golf programs in the country. The team maintained a 3.0 grade point average throughout the fall semester. The GCAA All-Academic Team award was established in January 2009 to recognize the academic side of collegiate golf. The GCAA selects 82 teams from Divisions I, II and III, and teams from the National Junior College Athletic Association and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for the honor. The Tigers have been capturing the attention of golf fans with the resurgence of the team under the direction of coach Chuck Winstead. But under the radar, the team has been wildly successful in the classroom the past several years. Seven of the eight LSU golfers on the roster this season are members of Southeastern Conference Academic Honor Rolls. Senior Brian Leveille has been named to three separate SEC Academic Honor Rolls. ‘We are very proud of the work our guys put into not only improving their golf game, but their class work as well. This kind of recognition is evidence of the hard work and dedication they have shown in the classroom,’ said Winstead in a news release. ‘It is also attributable to the support we receive from Jason Shaw and the Cox Communications Academic Center for Student-Athletes.’ Shaw is the academic adviser and tutorial coordinator for the golf team. Shaw said time management skills are paramount and the student athletes face a unique challenge with coordinating their athletic events and their class schedules. ‘The team we have currently is a very cohesive unit,’ Shaw said. ‘They watch out for one another and genuinely want to see everyone succeed. The upperclassmen have done a great job of demonstrating to the underclassmen what it takes to be successful.’ On its Web site, the Cox Communications Academic Center for Student-Athletes states that its mission is to ‘reiterate the importance of the student component of ‘student-athlete.’ ‘The academic center plays a very important role in the success of our program as we seek to develop the best players in the country both on and off the course,’ Winstead said. ‘We will continually work toward that goal.’ The golf team will resume its season Feb. 13, in Gainesville, Fla., at the Mark Bostick Golf Course for the Gator Invitational. The Tigers will look to carry over the success from their final team event of the fall when they won the David Toms Intercollegiate in Baton Rouge. — Contact Luke Johnson at [email protected]