Sept. 21, 2016
Tournament Notes | Live Results
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State men's golf team resumes its fall schedule this weekend when it participates in the 63rd annual William H. Tucker Intercollegiate, Sept. 23-24, in Albuquerque, N.M.
The first two rounds of the 54-hole tournament will be contested on Friday, while the final 18 holes are slated for a Saturday completion on the par-72, 7,580-yard UNM Championship Course. A live scoring link courtesy of Golfstat will be available on GoAztecs.com, with a 7:30 a.m. MT/6:30 a.m. PT start scheduled for both days.
The Aztecs, who occupy the No. 23 spot in the most recent Golfweek poll, will square off against four additional ranked squads in No. 24 Washington, No. 25 UNLV, No. 31 New Mexico and No. 41 Pepperdine. In addition, SDSU will be afforded an early look at two other Mountain West schools in Colorado State and Wyoming, while Arizona, Brigham Young, Denver, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, San Diego, UTEP and Washington State round out the 16-team field.
Head coach Ryan Donovan has penciled in the starting lineup of Nahum Mendoza III (San Diego, Calif.), Blake Abercrombie (Rocklin, Calif.), Gunn Yang (Pyeongchang, South Korea), PJ Samiere (Kailua, Hawaii) and Pablo Matesanz (Irun, Spain), while Eric Ghim (Glendale, Ariz.) is slated to compete as an unattached golfer.
Mendoza and Abercrombie tied for seventh place on the individual leaderboard two weeks ago at the Gopher Invitational in suburban Minneapolis, Minn., after each carded a 2-over 215, while Yang landed in the 11th position at 216, followed by Samiere, who tied for 23rd with a 6-over 219. As a team, the Aztecs finished second at their season-opening event, carding a 13-over 865 to finish five strokes in back of Oklahoma for the title.
Elsewhere, Matesanz will be making his first varsity start for SDSU this weekend after tying for fifth at Minnesota's companion tournament, the Gopher Individual, with a 1-under 215 earlier this month. The Aztec junior has played in 10 events as an unattached competitor since his arrival on Montezuma Mesa, highlighted by a medal-winning performance at the Carlton Oaks WIU Invitational last February in nearby Santee, Calif.
SDSU will be participating in the Tucker Intercollegiate for the 14th time overall and the ninth occasion in the last 12 years. After recording a pair of second-place efforts in 2007 and 2009, the Aztecs walked away with the crown in 2010, rallying from a seven-stroke deficit during the final round to edge North Texas by one stroke. Last season, SDSU placed fifth out of 16 teams with a combined 8-over 872, while New Mexico (-15) and Texas Tech (E) grabbed the top two spots, respectively.
Yang was the Aztecs' top golfer at the Tucker Intercollegiate last year after tying sixth with a 3-under 213. The SDSU senior and 2014 U.S. Amateur champion will also be returning to the scene of his heroic performance the Albuquerque Regional last May where he carded a double-eagle from 218 yards away on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff against Texas A&M to help propel the Scarlet and Black into the NCAA Championships.
The Tucker Intercollegiate, which was named in honor of former University of New Mexico groundskeeper William H. Tucker, is the second-oldest men's college tournament in the country behind only the New England Intercollegiate. Previous individual competitors include Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Tommy Armour III, Tim Herron, Duffy Waldorf, Notah Begay and Matt Kuchar.
Following this weekend's tournament, the Aztecs will have another two-week break from competition before returning to the course for the Alister MacKenzie Invitational, Oct. 10-11, at the Meadow Club in Fairfax, Calif.