Feb. 14, 2016
SAN DIEGO -- After a three-month hiatus, the San Diego State men's golf team opens its spring schedule in earnest this week when it competes in The Prestige at PGA WEST, Feb. 15-17, in La Quinta, Calif.
The Aztecs are one of 15 squads scheduled to participate in the 16th annual event, which will be conducted on the par-71, 7046-yard Greg Norman Course, with UC Davis and Stanford serving as co-hosts.
The Prestige at PGA WEST will be contested with 18-hole rounds on three consecutive days and sports one of the most elite fields in the nation. Along with 25th-ranked SDSU, the tournament features No. 5 Stanford, No. 6 Duke, No. 7 USC, No. 10 Arizona State, No. 27 LSU and No. 41 Pepperdine. The premier lineup also includes East Tennessee State (51), Saint Mary's (52), UC Davis (96), Iowa State (104) Gonzaga (118) and San Diego (129), while the Stanford "B" team and Stirling University of Scotland round out the list of competing squads.
A live scoring link for the three rounds, which commence with tee times each day at 7:30 a.m. PT, will be available courtesy of Golfstat on GoAztecs.com.
SDSU head coach Ryan Donovan will accompany five golfers to the Palm Springs region, including Riccardo Michelini (Carpi, Italy), Gunn Yang (Pyeongchang, South Korea), Ryann Ree (Redondo Beach, Calif.), Nahum Mendoza III (San Diego, Calif.) and Michael Koeneke (San Diego, Calif.), who will be making his first start of the 2015-16 campaign.
The Aztecs are coming off an impressive fall slate when they posted top-five finishes in all four tournaments, including a victory last September in the season-opening Saint Mary's Invitational at Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach, Calif.
Individually, Michelini leads SDSU with a sparkling 70.50 scoring average and has three top-10 performances, including solo sixth-place effort at the University of California's Alister MacKenzie Invitational. The Aztec senior is currently ranked second in the Mountain West and 32nd in the nation and has logged four rounds in the 60s.
Meanwhile, Ree and Mendoza occupy the second spot on the squad with an average of 71.83 strokes per round. Not to be outdone, Yang (72.00) was the Scarlet and Black's top finisher in two events last fall, highlighted by an eighth-place tie at New Mexico's William H. Tucker Intercollegiate.
SDSU will be competing at The Prestige at PGA WEST for the fifth straight season after placing third out of 14 teams a year ago. The Aztecs posted a collective 23-under 841 in 2015, finishing four strokes behind runner-up Stanford (-27) and eight shots in back of team champion Arizona State (-31). Maverick McNealy of Stanford returns to defend his individual title after carding a 15-under 201 last season, while ASU's Jon Rahm (T-2nd), Sean Crocker of USC (T-4th) and LSU's Eric Ricard (T-7th) are also back in the mix.
Former SDSU All-American Xander Schauffele, who tied for second with Rahm last year, has been lost to graduation, leaving Ree (18th) and Mendoza (T-19th) as the Aztecs' lone returning starters from the 2015 event.
After a one-year hiatus, The Prestige returns to the Greg Norman Course. Last season, the tournament was conducted on the par-72, 7,204-yard Jack Nicklaus Course. The Prestige was a fixture on the fall segment of college men's golf schedule for 12 years before moving to the spring in 2013.
Previously, the Greg Norman Course played host to the tournament on eight occasions from 2004-08 and 2011-14, sandwiched around a two-year stay at the TPC Stadium Course from 2009-10. Other venues included the Desert Willow Golf Club (2000-01) and the La Quinta Mountain Resort Course (2002-03).
Following this week's event, San Diego State will travel to the San Fernando Valley to compete in the Southwestern Jones Invitational, Feb. 29-March 1, at North Ranch Country Club in Westlake Village, Calif.