April 3, 2009
ALPHARETTA, Ga. - The No. 24-ranked Texas A&M men's golf team faces one of the season's toughest tests starting on Sunday at the United States Collegiate Championship at the Golf Club of Georgia.
The 15-team field includes the top 11 teams in the latest Golf World/NIKE coaches' poll. Joining A&M will be top-ranked Georgia, No. 2 Oklahoma State, No. 3 Southern California, No. 4 Clemson, No. 5 Stanford, No. 6 Florida, No. 7 Indiana, No. 8 Alabama, No. 9 Washington, No. 10 Georgia Tech, No. 11 South Carolina, No. 23 Florida State, East Tennessee State and UCLA.
The 54-hole event continues through Tuesday. Live scoring is available online at http://www.golfstat.com.
Representing A&M will be seniors Bronson Burgoon and Clay Hodge, junior Andrea Pavan, sophomore Nacho Elvira and freshman Geoff Shaw.
"We are anxious to get back out and play another tournament," A&M Coach J.T. Higgins said. "The U.S. Collegiate Championship is probably the biggest event of the year outside the NCAA Championship. It's a terrific event with a great field of teams and is played on an outstanding golf course, On top of that, it's run like PGA Tour event with big galleries and the players even get caddies. We will need to be on top of our game to compete but we look forward to that challenge."
The Aggies are coming off a 10th place finish at the Morris Williams Intercollegiate on Tuesday in Austin. Pavan tied for fifth place individually to lead the Aggies, who have won three tournaments in 2008-09.