Sept. 25, 2011
Aztec Men's Golf Kicks Off 2011-12 In Washington
The No. 6/14 San Diego State men's golf team tees off its season on Monday at the two-day Kikkor Golf Husky Invitational in Bremerton, Wash., Sept. 26-27. The Aztecs will be among an elite field of 16 schools at the par-72, 7,124-yard Olympic Course at Gold Mountain Golf Club in Bremerton, Wash. The tournament is being hosted by the University of Washington.
Headlining SDSU's list of opponents this week is preseason No. 7 USC, No. 13 Washington, No. 17 Texas A&M and No. 21 Oregon. The Aztecs will be the only Mountain West Conference team represented at the tournament, which also includes five Pac-12 squads and four WCC schools.
Teams will play two rounds on Monday starting with tee times at 7:30 a.m. PT. The final 18 holes will commence as early as 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday. Live stats are available at www.golfstat.com.
Aztec Line-Up For This Week
Ninth-year head coach Ryan Donovan will bring to the Pacific Northwest three of the five players who represented the Aztecs at the 2011 NCAA championships.
Among the group is each of the team's top three stroke average leaders from a year ago in seniors J.J. Spaun (San Dimas, Calif.) and Alex Kang (Oak Park, Calif.), as well as sophomore Todd Baek (Auckland, New Zealand). Junior Tom Berry (New Haw, England), who helped SDSU win its first-ever Mountain West Conference crown last season, will also make the trip along with freshman Wilson Bateman (Edmonton, Alberta).
Baek, Berry, Kang and Spaun all played in last year's Kikkor Husky Invitational.
Flashback: SDSU At The Husky Invitational
San Diego State will play at the Husky Invitational for the third time in the last four years and the seventh occasion since 2000. The event was not held in 2009, and took place at Washington National Golf Course in Auburn, Wash., in 2010.
Last season, SDSU came in third with a 54-hole total of 5-under 859, highlighted by a final-round 283. The Aztecs had three players finish in the top 20, including Alex Kang, who placed sixth at 3-under 213, Todd Baek, who logged a 15th-place performance at even-par, and then senior Johan Carlsson, who tied for 19th with a 2-over 218.
Tom Berry dropped from eighth into a tie for 33rd in the final standings after carding a final-round 80, while J.J. Spaun was 55th at 12-over 228.
Preseason Accolades
The San Diego State men's golf team has already received a pair of top-15 national rankings, snagging a No. 6 spot in Golfweek's preseason top 10 and claiming a No. 14 position in the Golf World/Nike Golf Division I College Preseason Coaches' Poll.
The Aztecs are the only Mountain West squad in either the Golfweek top 30 or the coaches' poll top 25. Last year, the team finished the season ranked ninth by Golfweek/Sagarin and was 12th by golfstat.com.
In addition, three San Diego State golfers, seniors J.J. Spaun and Alex Kang and sophomore Todd Baek, were among the Golf World 50 Men's College Players to Watch. SDSU tied with Alabama for having the most players represented on the list with three apiece.
2010-11 Review: Aztecs Claim MWC, NCAA Regional Titles
The 2010-11 campaign was a record-setting one for the SDSU men's golf program. The Aztecs claimed seven tournaments, including their first-ever Mountain West and NCAA regional championships. The seven titles ranked second nationally to only Oklahoma State, which had eight victories and finished the regular season as the consensus No. 1 squad.
San Diego State rose to as high as No. 4 in the national rankings by golfstat.com and logged 13 top-five finishes in all, including 12 in the top three, while boasting a combined head-to-head record of 168-31-1, which amounts to a 84.3 winning percentage. SDSU did not finish lower than seventh at any 2010-11 outing prior to the NCAA national championships and twice was named the national team of the week by GolfWeek.
Then junior J.J. Spaun was named a third-team All-American and first team all-conference honoree, while freshman Todd Baek picked up honorable mention All-America and national all-freshman accolades. Both Spaun (t-3rd) and Baek (t-10th) finished in the top 10 at the NCAA tournament in Stillwater, Okla.
Summer Update
Several Aztecs had a busy summer away from The Mesa. Four golfers, seniors Alex Kang and J.J. Spaun, redshirt junior Evan Emerick (Carlsbad, Calif.) and sophomore Todd Baek earned spots in the U.S. Amateur, which was played Aug. 22-28 at the Erin Hills and Blue Mound Golf and Country Club in Erin, Wis. Baek was the only player to advance to match play, falling in a heartbreaker to NCAA individual champion John Peterson in 22 holes.
Earlier in the summer, Spaun and Baek each advanced to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship in Oregon, while Spaun tied for 20th at the Sunnehanna Amateur in Pennsylvania.
Head Coach Ryan Donovan
Ryan Donovan is in his ninth season at the helm of the SDSU golf program after serving as an assistant in 2003.
Since taking over as head coach, Donovan has directed the Aztecs to 19 tournament titles and four NCAA national championship appearances.
In 2010-11, he was named a finalist for the Dave Williams Award, which is handed out annually to the national coach of the year in Division I men's golf. Donovan also became the first Aztec named Mountain West Coach of the Year in the league's 12-year history and was tabbed the Eaton Golf Pride West Region Division I Men's Coach of the Year by the Golf Coaches Association of America.
A native of Yorba Linda, Calif., Donovan was a four-year member of the Aztec golf squad, before graduating in 2001.