November 04, 1998
The Texas A&M men's golf team ends its fall season Friday through Sunday at the Golf World/Palmetto Dunes Collegiate Invitational at the Arthur Hills Course in Palmetto Dunes.
The tournament consists of 18 holes each day for a total of 54 holes. The Arthur Hills Course is a par 72 layout that measures 6,651 yards.
The 18-team field includes 13 teams ranked in the latest MasterCard Top 25. In addition to A&M, the field consists of top-ranked Oklahoma State, No. 2 Georgia, No. 3 Clemson, No. 4 UNLV, No. 5 Georgia Tech, No. 6 Houston, No. 7 Arizona State, No. 8 TCU, No. 11 UCLA, No. 12 South Carolina, No. 15 Arizona, No. 17 Ohio State, No. 18 East Tennessee State, SMU, New Mexico, Florida Southern and Fresno State. UNLV is the defending NCAA champion and TCU is the defending tournament champion.
The individual field is led by the last two U.S. Amateur champions, Georgia's Matt Kuchar (1997) and SMU's Hank Kuehne (1998). Past champions include Tiger Woods, Davis Love III, David Duval, Robert Gamez, Phil Mickelson and Justin Leonard.
Representing A&M will be senior Ryan Palmer (Amarillo/Amarillo HS), sophomore Casey Cronin (Rockwall/Rockwall HS), sophomore Clay Fullick (Baytown/Baytown HS), freshman Sean Gilliland (Killeen/Killeen HS), senior Matt Welch (DeSoto/DeSoto HS) and junior Lee Reed (Rigby, Idaho/Rigby HS).
"We've had a tough fall, but the players have great attitudes and have been working especially hard," A&M coach Bob Ellis said. "Our scores are starting to reflect that. We'd like to finish the fall schedule with a solid tournament and try to get some momentum heading into the spring."