Feb. 12, 2011
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State men's golf team, ranked 10th nationally by golfstat.com, will compete in its second tournament of the spring campaign when it travels to the 2011 Battle at the Beach for the second year in a row, Feb. 13-15.
The 54-hole event, which is being hosted by Long Beach State, will take place at the par-70, 6,900-yard The Resort at Pelican Hill in Newport Coast Calif. Each of the 13 schools will have six golfers apiece with the low five scores counting per round toward the team total. The first two days will start with tee times beginning as early as 7 a.m. PT, while the final 18 gets underway Tuesday with a shotgun start at 8:30 a.m.
SDSU's competition this week includes eight other schools ranked in the top 50 nationally according to golfstat.com. The Aztecs will be joined by No. 2 UCLA, No. 12 Arkansas, No. 14 Arkansas State, No. 25 USD, No. 27 Washington, No. 34 Arizona State, No. 36 Oregon State and No. 48 UC Davis. Host Long Beach State, Colorado, Tennessee and UTSA round out the field.
The six Aztec golfers that head coach Ryan Donovan will bring with him are senior Johan Carlsson (Gothenburg, Sweden), juniors Colin Featherstone (Fallbrook, Calif.), Alex Kang (Oak Park, Calif.) and J.J. Spaun (San Dimas, Calif.), sophomore Tom Berry (New Haw, England) and freshman Todd Baek (Auckland, New Zealand). Five of the six, excluding Berry, helped the team win its second tournament of the season in the spring-opener, the Arizona Intercollegiate, in Tucson, Jan. 31-Feb. 1.
A year ago, SDSU finished in fifth place at the first-ever Battle at the Beach on the same course in Newport Coast. The Aztecs posted a 5-over 1,070, and were led by Featherstone and Spaun, who each tied for 11th place at 2-under 211.