April 21, 2006
The No. 6-ranked Texas A&M men's golf team will compete at the Big 12 Championship on Monday and Tuesday at Southern Hills Country Club.
The Aggies, who have not won a conference title since 1987, are the second highest-ranked Big 12 team behind No. 2 Oklahoma State. Baylor is ranked 12th, Texas Tech is 14th and Texas is 23rd.
Southern Hills, which stretches 7,016 yards and is a par 71, most recently was the site of the 2001 U.S. Open and will sponsor the event again in 2007.
The tournament will consist of 36 holes on Monday and 18 on Tuesday. Live scoring is available at www.golfstat.com.
"We are very excited about the Big 12 Championship because we think it is a great opportunity for us," A&M coach J.T. Higgins said. "Southern Hills is such a demanding course with extremely difficult greens and over the course of the season, we have been a terrific putting team. The harder the course, the more successful we have been."
A&M has a balanced lineup with four players averaging from 73.3 to 73.6 strokes per round. Senior Andrew Parr and sophomore Robert Gates, Jr., lead the way with 73.30 averages, while freshman Bronson Burgoon is at 73.33 and senior Jerad Harklau is at 73.60. Sophomore Martin Piller (75.07) completes the lineup.
Ranked No. 51 nationally by Golfweek, Parr has posted five top-15 finishes this year and is coming off a third-place finish at the Aggie Invitational. Gates has had seven top-20 finishes and has been in the top 10 in three of his last four starts. He is ranked No. 62.
Burgoon has established himself as one of the top freshmen in the country, earning a No. 64 ranking with five top-20 efforts. He qualified as an amateur for the this week's stop on the PGA TOUR, the Shell Houston Open.
Harklau is ranked no. 77 and has recorded five top-25 performances while Piller has had four top-25 efforts in five starts this spring.
A&M and Oklahoma State lead the Big 12 with four players apiece in Golfweek's top 100.
As a team, A&M has finished in the top 10 in all 10 tournaments this season, including six top-five finishes. The Aggies won two tournaments in the fall and have been runners-up twice this spring, including last week's Aggie Invitational.
A&M defeated Oklahoma State at the Aggie Invitational but lost to red-hot Texas Tech by a single stroke.
"The guys have a lot of confidence and believe in each other so strongly that anything is possible for us this season," Higgins said. "We will definitely have to play smart, patient golf but if we can keep our composure and focus we should be right in the hunt."
Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan., hosted the first six Big 12 Championships (1997-2002 and 2004) before the 2003 competition was played at Southern Hills. Last year, the championship was played at Whispering Pines Golf Club in Trinity, Texas.
Oklahoma State tallied a three-round total of four-over-par 868 to win the 2005 crown by nine strokes over Oklahoma while A&M was fifth. The Cowboys led every round of the championship en route to their fourth Big 12 title, their first since 2000. Oklahoma's Anthony Kim is the defending individual champion after carding an eight-under 208.
The last time the Big 12 tournament was at Southern Hills in 2003, the Aggies posted a fourth-place finish, its best in nine years of Big 12 play. Parr is the only current player remaining from that team. He Tied for 23rd at Southern Hills as a freshman.