March 30, 2012
The San Diego State men's golf team takes its four-tournament win streak to the Bay Area for the U.S Intercollegiate, March 30-April 1 in Stanford, Calif. The 54-hole, three-day event will take place at the par-70, 6,727-yard Stanford Golf Course.
The Aztecs moved into the top 10 of the golfstat.com rankings this past Wednesday and are currently rated ninth nationally. They will be one of 15 teams in this weekend's tournament, which also includes No. 5 Washington, No. 6 UCLA, No. 8 USC, No. 12 Oregon and host and No. 13 Stanford. SDSU is the only Mountain West squad represented as Colorado, Fresno State, Nevada, Oregon State, Pepperdine, USF, San Jose State, UC Davis, Utah and Washington State round out the field.
The Aztecs are returning to the U.S. Intercollegiate, after a one-year hiatus, as the 2011 edition was not played. The team was runner-up by just three strokes in its most recent appearance in 2010 behind only then No. 6 Oregon.
The tournament will feature live scoring on goaztecs.com, as well as golfstat.com. Schools will tee off from either the No. 1 or No. 10 holes starting as early as 8 a.m. PT each day.
Aztec Line-Up For This Week
After having eight golfers compete in the most recent tournament, ninth-year head coach Ryan Donovan will bring just five student-athletes with him to Stanford this week. Seniors Colin Featherstone (Fallbrook, Calif.), Matt Hoffenberg (Simi Valley, Calif.), Alex Kang (Oak Park, Calif.) and J.J. Spaun (San Dimas, Calif.) and junior Tom Berry (New Haw, England) compose the veteran line-up.
Spaun, Kang and Berry all participated in the most recent U.S. Intercollegiate back in 2010, while Hoffenberg played in the 2008 edition, finishing as the top Aztec in 13th place.
U.S. Intercollegiate Tid-Bits
The U.S. Intercollegiate first started in 1968 and has been played 42 times overall. The Aztecs finished first in both 1977 and 1978, while Gary Simoni (1977), Lenny Clements (1979) and most recently, Mark Warman (2003), earned medalist honors. Warman logged a school record round of 62 en route to his first career title.
Other previous U.S. Intercollegiate winners include Tom Watson (1971), Corey Pavin (1982), Bill Mayfair (1987), Casey Martin (1995) and Joel Kriebel (1996-97).