BATON ROUGE - The 14th-ranked LSU men's golf team looks to defend its crown and win its third team title in four seasons at the Louisiana Classics this week as it tees off in the 28th-annual championship on Monday morning following a record-setting victory a year ago at Oakbourne Country Club in Lafayette, La.
The Tigers fired a team record 54-hole tournament score of 17-under par 847 to cruise to a 14-shot victory over SMU and Tulsa in winning the Louisiana Classics crown a year ago.
The Tigers also took home the team title in the event during the 2010 spring season with a winning tournament score of even-par 864.
Oakbourne Country Club will play to a par 72 and 6,898 yards for the two-day, 54-hole championship as teams will play two rounds Monday and a final round Tuesday to determine this year's tournament champions. Monday's opening round is scheduled to begin with a shotgun start at 8 a.m. CT.
Golfstat will provide live scoring of the championship at www.golfstat.com. The University of Louisiana-Lafayette will also provide live streaming video of all three rounds of this year's Louisiana Classics at its official athletics website on Monday at http://lsul.su/ZZUArb and on Tuesday at http://lsul.su/ZZUVKs.
The Tigers are the No. 14-ranked team nationally in the latest Golfstat Top 25 and Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index released on Wednesday of last week.
The 14-team field at the 28th-annual Louisiana Classics features three Top 25 and six Top 50 programs in the Golfstat power rankings. The 14th-ranked Tigers headline a field that also includes No. 20 Illinois, No. 23 Kent state, No. 34 Houston, No. 38 Tulsa and No. 47 South Alabama. Rounding out the field are tournament host Louisiana-Lafayette, as well as Kansas, Louisiana Tech, Memphis, Southeastern Louisiana, Southern Mississippi, Texas-San Antonio and Texas State.
The Tigers are paired with Illinois and Louisiana-Lafayette in Monday's action and will tee off on holes Nos. 1-3 with a shotgun start set for 8 a.m. CT.
Not only are the Tigers the defending team champions at the Louisiana Classics, but LSU junior All-SEC and All-America hopeful Andrew Presley is the defending individual champion after firing his career-low tournament score of 10-under par 206 to claim a three-shot victory over former Tiger teammate Sang Yi on the final leaderboard a year ago.
Presley won his first collegiate title after carding back-to-back rounds of 4-under 68 in the first and second rounds and a 2-under 70 in the final round at the 2012 Louisiana Classics.
Two other Tigers also return from the winning lineup at the Louisiana Classics last spring as Presley will be joined in the five-man rotation by fellow junior Landon Lyons and sophomore Stewart Jolly. Also competing for the team title with the Tigers will be sophomores Myles Lewis and Curtis Thompson. Playing as individuals this week will be junior Smylie Kaufman and freshman Zach Wright.
After competing at the 28th-annual Louisiana Classics tournament on Monday and Tuesday, the Tigers will continue their spring season on March 11-12 as the defending champions at the Argent Financial Classic hosted by Louisiana Tech at Squire Creek Country Club in Choudrant, La.
