April 23, 2004
The Texas A&M men's golf team will compete at the 2004 Big 12 Championships Monday and Tuesday at Prairie Dunes Country Club. The Aggies hope to challenge for their first conference title since 1987.
The tournament will consist of 36 holes on Monday and 18 holes on Tuesday for a total of 54 holes. The top four individual scores from each team will count toward each day's team score. Play will begin at 8 a.m. each day.
In addition to No. 39-ranked A&M (Golfweek ratings), the field will include No. 7 Texas, No. 8 Oklahoma State, No. 23 Oklahoma, No. 24 Kansas, No. 32 Colorado, No. 35 Kansas State, No. 36 Texas Tech, No. 38 Baylor, No. 79 Missouri, No. 100 Iowa State and No. 123 Nebraska.
A&M's Big 12 lineup consists of two seniors, one junior and two sophomores. Three of A&M's top four seeds -- senior David Tasker, sophomore Andrew Parr and senior Stephen Reed -- have played in all 10 tournaments while junior David Schultz has appeared in nine. Those four players have all posted scoring averages of 73.65 or better.
Sophomore Rand Arbuckle has played in just three previous events this season, but the Big 12 will mark his third straight tournament.
"We have worked hard all year looking forward to this upcoming month of competition," A&M coach J.T. Higgins said. "The Big 12 is probably the most competitive conference in America for collegiate golf as nine teams are ranked in the Top 40 and many of the best players will competing at our conference championship. We will be playing at Prairie Dunes, one of the very best courses in the world and when you combine that with great teams and a fairly good chance of some inclement weather, it should make for a very exciting and tough week."
Fifteen Big 12 players are ranked among the top 100 individuals nationally by Golfweek, led by No. 12-ranked Casey Wittenberg of Oklahoma State. Tasker is ranked No. 103.
The Aggies have posted an 89-58-3 dual record this season and have finished in the top 10 in nine of 10 events, including five top-five performances. A&M closed the fall season with a tie for fifth at the Barona Collegiate Cup, which included a second-round score of 13-under-par 275, the best round in school history.
The Aggies opened the fall with a solid performance at the Burns Intercollegiate in Hawaii, tying for sixth. A&M's 36-hole score of 563 is the fourth-best in school annals and the 54-hole score of 849 ranks fourth on the school chart.
Tasker has had an outstanding season, leading the team with a 72.59 stroke average, the best by an Aggie since All-American Anthony Rodriguez in 1994-95 (72.1). He has posted seven top-20 and four top-10 finishes and has finished in the top 15 in five of six spring tournaments. His 54-hole score of 70-67-70=207 at the Burns Intercollegiate in February is the fifth-best in school history.
Reed has missed just one tournament in his A&M career and has played in 47 events, including three Big 12 Championships. He ranks third on the team in scoring this season with a 73.35 average and has posted three top-20 finishes. Reed won the individual title at the Mason Rudolph Collegiate in the fall, closing with a six-under-par 65, the fifth-best round in school history.
Parr ranks second on the team in scoring with a 73.31 average, the best by a sophomore in school history. If not for teammate David Tasker, Parr's scoring average would be the best by an Aggie in nine years. He has had four top-15 finishes this season, including a tie for fourth at the Tucker Intercollegiate to open the fall slate.
"We will need to play our best - not only physically, but intelligent and composed - to give ourselves a chance to win," Higgins said. "I truly believe that if we play smart and control our emotions that we have the ability to compete in this tournament."
Prairie Dunes Country Club measures 6,593 yards and plays to a par of 70. The Big 12 Championships return to Prairie Dunes after being played at Tulsa's Southern Hills Country Club in 2003. Prairie Dunes was the site of the first six Big 12 Championships and is rated among the top 50 courses in the world and the top 20 in the United States. The 67-year-old course was the site of the 2002 U.S. Women's Open.
Reed and Arbuckle are the only Aggies who have played at Prairie Dunes. Reed tied for fifth as a freshman at the 2001 Big 12 Championships (75-79-72=226) and followed with a tied for 23rd as a sophomore in 2002 (74-76-71=221). Arbuckle tied for 26th as a freshman at Prairie Dunes in 2002 (77-73-72=222).
Texas won its second straight Big 12 title last year at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla. UT's 894 total finished four strokes ahead of runner-up Oklahoma State (898) while Oklahoma was third at 899. A&M finished fourth with rounds of 312-299-307=918, its highest finish in Big 12 play.
Oklahoma State's Hunter Mahan won the individual title at 73-67-68=208, finishing a record 13 shots ahead of Texas' Jason Hartwick (221). A&M was led by Tasker, who tied for third at 76-73-74=223. Parker Briley tied for 19th at 79-74-79=232, while Parr tied for 23rd (78-77-78=233), Reed tied for 31st (79-75-82=236) and Shaun Helmle tied for 44th (86-78-76=240).
Four schools have won Big 12 titles. Oklahoma State has won three times (1997, 1998, 2000), while Kansas (1999), Baylor (2001) and Texas (2002, 2003) also have captured the crown. No player has won the individual crown twice. OSU has had four individual champions (Leif Westerberg in 1997, Charles Howell in 2000, Anders Hultman in 2002 and Hunter Mahan in 2003), while Oklahoma (Hunter Haas in 1998), Texas (David Gossett in 1999) and Baylor (Worth Williams in 2001) each have had one champion.
A&M has won 10 conference titles in men's golf, all in the Southwest Conference (1926, 1948, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1967, 1969, 1982, 1987). Ten A&M golfers have won individual conference titles, also all in the SWC. A&M's last individual champions were in 1995, when Anthony Rodriguez and Dru Fenimore shared the title with SMU's Jim Skinner and Houston's Lance Combrink.