May 27, 2005
2005 Aztec men's golf postseason media guide in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader
SDSU Headed To NCAA Championships
The San Diego State men's golf team will travel to the NCAA championships, June 1-4, at the par-70, 7,131-yard Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Md. The Aztecs are making the program's 24th overall NCAA appearance (23rd in Div. I) and their first since 2003.
SDSU is one of 30 teams headed to Maryland, qualifying for the tournament after finishing in the top 10 at the NCAA west regional in Stanford, Calif., May 19-21. The 156-player field also includes six individual qualifiers.
The national championship consists of 72 holes over a four-day period with 18 holes played each day. After 54 holes, the field will be reduced to the top 15 teams and top six individuals not on an advancing team.
The Aztecs will be paired with Georgia Tech and Missouri for the first two rounds. The three schools begin at the 10th tee at 7:18 a.m. (EDT) on Wednesday, while they start the second round on the first tee at 12:18 p.m. The pairings for the final 36 holes will be based on team standings.
SDSU will be able to log two practice rounds at Caves Valley on Monday (12:10 p.m.) and Tuesday (8:20 a.m.) before competition begins Wednesday.
The Upperclassmen: Aztec Line-Up For This Week
The Aztecs will feature the same starting five for the fourth straight tournament. Seniors Aaron Choi (San Diego, Calif.), Linus Nilsson (Limhamn, Sweden) and Gilberto Rodriguez (Tijuana, Mexico) will be joined by juniors Andrew Scott (Henderson, Nev.) and Josh Warthen (Pismo Beach, Calif.). Choi is currently ranked 111th and Scott is No. 128 in the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index.
While all five SDSU players are upperclassmen, only one has previous experience at the NCAA championships. As a freshman in 2003, Scott carded a 54-hole total of 32-over 248, including an 81 in the first 18 holes.
The Competition
SDSU will of course face its toughest competition of the season in the quest for the national championship. All of the top seven ranked schools by Golfweek advanced from the regional tournaments, while eight of the top 10 are scheduled to compete next week. Out of the top 20, only No. 8 Auburn, No. 10 TCU and No. 19 South Carolina will not make the trip to Maryland.
The highest ranked team is the No. 1 Oklahoma State Cowboys, while Missouri enters with the lowest ranking of No. 55. OSU, however, fell in the NCAA central regional by nine strokes to No. 7 Augusta State, while No. 14 Wake Forest and No. 4 UNLV were the other regional winners.
The Mountain West Conference will have four schools represented in the field of 30, including BYU, UNLV, New Mexico and SDSU. The four tie as the third-most by any one conference. Leading the way are the Pac-10 and SEC with six apiece, while the Big 12 also has four. In all, there are 11 different conferences represented and one independent.
The reigning 2004 NCAA champion California Golden Bears will not be back to defend their title, failing to even qualify for the NCAA regionals. Individual medalist, UNLV's Ryan Moore, however, does return and is the top rated golfer according to the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index.
The Aztecs have played 14 of the 29 other teams in the field in 2004-05, and hold winning or even head-to-head records over six of them.
Against the 30 total schools, SDSU is 13-29 this season.
On Course
The NCAA championships will stay in the eastern part of the country for the second consecutive season. Last year's tournament took place in Hot Springs, Va., while this is the first time that the event has been held in the state of Maryland.
The Caves Valley Golf Club was designed by Tom Fazio and opened for play in 1991. In just 14 years of existence, Caves Valley has already played host to the 2002 U.S. Senior Open Championship and the 1995 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship.
The par-70 course will cover 7,131 yards with two par-5 holes, 12 par-4s and four par-3s.
SDSU In The NCAA Championships
The 2005 NCAA tournament will be the 24th for the Aztecs, including their one appearance at the "small college" (Div. II) level. SDSU was the small-college runner-up in 1964, falling by just two strokes to Southern Illinois.
The Aztecs are in the championship field for the first time since 2003. The team had made 11 straight appearances in the NCAAs through the 1984 season when a Dennis Paulson-led Aztec squad finished 24th in the field.
After the program was dropped and reinstated, SDSU returned to the championship in 1999. This marks the third time since regional play began in 1989 that SDSU has advanced to the championships.
The Aztecs have finished in the top 10 on two occasions at the Division I level with their best performance coming in 1966, when the team placed sixth with a 604 in Palo Alto, Calif.
Rewind: SDSU At The 2003 NCAAs
The SDSU men's golf team finished the 2003 NCAA championships in 30th place overall, carding a three-round team score of 965 in Stillwater, Okla. The Aztecs failed to make the cut with 18 holes still remaining, after the NCAA Golf Committee decided to trim the 30-team field to 18 due to slow play and high scores during the opening rounds.
SDSU was hampered when then sophomore Aaron Choi was unable to participate due to illness after the first practice round. He was replaced by Andrew Scott, who arrived in Stillwater late Monday night and was unable to reap the benefits of the practice rounds.
The Aztecs were led individually by John Lieber, who carded a 236, and Mark Warman, who finished with a 239.
NCAA Championship Media Coverage
Live stats of each round will be provided at www.golfstat.com for this year's NCAA championships.
In addition, The Golf Channel will televise each of the final three rounds of the tournament on a tape-delay basis from 3-5 p.m. EDT. A replay of the previous day's action will air from 1-3 a.m., Friday through Sunday morning.
Brian Anderson and Curt Byrum will call the action, while Steve Burkowski will report from the course.
Last Time Out: 2005 NCAA West Regional
The San Diego State men's golf team shot a final round four-over-par 284 to finish in seventh place at the NCAA West Regional Championships, May 19-21, at the Stanford Golf Course in Stanford, Calif.
Riding the strong play of senior Gilberto Rodriguez, SDSU used its best round of the tournament to hold off a tightly bunched group vying for the final qualifying spots.
Late in the final round with SDSU in a three-way tie for ninth place, Rodriguez was nothing short of amazing, firing a back-nine 31 that featured birdies on 10, 11, 15, 16 and 18. His final round 67, gave him a three-day total of even-par and placed him in a tie for sixth place among the 141 entries.
Junior Andrew Scott helped the team's cause with his second consecutive 1-over-par 71. After bogeying three out of four holes on the back nine, Scott was solid down the stretch, playing the final four holes at 1-under-par. He finished the championships at 5-over-par and tied for 25th place.
Junior Josh Warthen produced a final round 73. Like Scott, Warthen steadied his play down the stretch after a rough couple of holes on the back nine. Following four consecutive bogeys on 11-14, he played the final four holes at 1-under-par to help the Aztecs clinch an NCAA Championship bid.
Coming off a disappointing second round, senior Linus Nilsson produced a final round 73 that featured three birdies to place 97th with a 16-over 226 for the tournament.
Senior Aaron Choi dropped from 46th to 111th with a third-round 83, after carding a 6-over-146 in the first 36 holes.
NCAA West Regional Notes
- The Aztecs' seventh-place finish was the program's second-best in an NCAA regional, trailing only the 1999 squad which took fifth.
- SDSU set a team record for lowest score by a whopping 11 strokes. The Aztecs carded a 20-over 860, which beat the previous best of 871 in 1990. - Senior Gilberto Rodriguez's sixth place is the highest individual finish by an Aztec. Rodriguez beat the previous best of eighth by three different SDSU players.
- Rodriguez's 210 was also a SDSU record by two strokes over Kevin Riley, who carded a 54-hole score of 212 in 1990. Rodriguez's final round 67 is just one off the school low round of 66 by Magnus Carlsson in 1999.
- Andrew Scott's five-over 215 is the fourth-best in school history, while Josh Warthen's 216 ties for fifth.
Other SDSU Season Notes
- SDSU has seven top-five team finishes this season, including three runner-up performances at the Fresno Lexus Classic, the Oregon Duck Invitational and the U.S. Intercollegiate ... The Aztecs placed in the top five in six straight events before coming in seventh at the NCAA west regional.
- A different golfer has lead the team at each of the last four tournaments.
- The Aztecs tied a school record for 54 holes with a 30-under 834 at the PING Cougar Classic in late April. The score matched the effort posted by the 2003 squad at the Fresno Lexus Classic.
- Junior Andrew Scott tied the school 54-hole record with a 205 at the 2004 Fresno State Lexus Classic. Scott matched his own record-setting performance from the year before at the same event. Aaron Goldberg shares the record with Scott with a 205 at the 2004 U.S. Intercollegiate.
- Senior Aaron Choi and junior Andrew Scott were both named to the 11-player all-Mountain West Conference team on April 30 ... the honor is the first for both, while two SDSU golfers have been named to the all-MWC in the same season twice prior in 2002 and 2003.
Head Coach Ryan Donovan
After leading the Aztecs to a solid season in 2004, Ryan Donovan is in his second season as the head coach of the San Diego Stat men's golf program. Last year, the Aztecs compiled a record on 105-66-1 in head-to-head play.
Prior to taking over the program, Donovan served as the SDSU assistant golf coach. From 1997 to 2001 Donovan also was a four-year member of the Aztec golf team. The most successful season of his collegiate career was in 2000, when he recorded five top-30 finishes.