April 8, 2016
SAN DIEGO -- In its final tune-up before the Mountain West Championships, the San Diego State men's golf team will travel up the coast next week for the 70th installment of the Western Intercollegiate, April 11-13, at the scenic par-70, 6,615-yard Pasatiempo Golf Course in Santa Cruz, Calif.
The three-day, 54-hole tournament is scheduled to commence in a shotgun start on Monday at 8:45 a.m. PT, with a live scoring link courtesy of Golfstat available on GoAztecs.com.
Along with the No. 21 Aztecs, the elite field features eight additional squads ranked among the top 60 in the latest Golfstat index, including No. 1 Southern California, seventh-ranked Arizona State, No. 9 Stanford, 15th-ranked California, No. 25 Washington, 26th-ranked Oregon, No. 39 Pepperdine and 53rd-ranked UCLA. In addition, SDSU will battle tournament host and MW rival San Jose State, while Arizona, Hawai'i, UC Irvine and UTEP round out the list of competing squads.
The Western Intercollegiate is a six-count-five tournament, with Ryann Ree (Redondo Beach, Calif.), Blake Abercrombie (Rocklin, Calif.), Nahum Mendoza III (San Diego, Calif.), Brian Song (Beverly Hills, Calif.), Riccardo Michelini (Carpi, Italy) and Gunn Yang (Pyeongchang, South Korea) comprising head coach Ryan Donovan's lineup card. In addition, the Scarlet and Black will be represented by PJ Samiere (Kailua, Hawaii), who will participate as an unattached golfer.
The Aztecs are making their sixth straight appearance at the Western Intercollegiate, but just their seventh since 2001. Last season, SDSU finished ninth out of 14 schools with a combined score of 1101 (+51), while Mendoza, Michelini and Samiere tied for 24th on the individual leaderboard at 15-over 225.
Michelini has the most experience of the Aztec delegation at the Western Intercollegiate with three starts to his credit, while Mendoza has competed twice, followed by Ree, Samiere and Song, who made their initial appearances last year on the famed Pasatiempo layout, which was designed by Alister MacKenzie, the architect of Augusta National.
The Aztecs boast three players ranked among the top 50 nationally in the latest Golfstat Cup standings, including Ree, who enters the week in the 17th position, while Mendoza occupies the 21st spot, followed by Michelini, who checks in at No. 42. Mendoza leads SDSU with a 70.52 scoring average in seven events this year, while Ree (70.63) and Michelini (71.15) are the only two Aztecs to have started all nine tournaments.
Collectively, SDSU has finished no worse than fifth place in nine events this season, highlighted by team titles at the Saint Mary's Invitational in Pebble Beach last September and the Barona Collegiate Cup in March. In addition, the Aztecs have placed third on five occasions this year, including last week at the ASU Thunderbird Invitational in Tempe, Ariz., where Ree and Mendoza tied for fourth on the individual leaderboard at 9-under 204.
Texas (+2), which took home the crown at the Western Intercollegiate last season on the strength of Scottie Scheffler's medal-winning performance, will not be making the trip to Santa Cruz this year, leaving Oregon (+16) and Stanford (+17) as the top two returning schools, respectively.
Cal's Shotaro Ban is the top returning individual from last season's tournament after finishing three shots off the pace at 6-under, while Jon Rahm of Arizona State (3rd), Oregon's Zach Foushee (T-4) and Maverick McNealy (T-4th) landed in the top five. Rahm and McNealy are among 11 golfers in this year's field who have combined to win 15 collegiate events thus far during the 2015-16 campaign.
The Western Intercollegiate was established in 1947 and is the oldest running men's college golf tournament west of the Mississippi River. Lars Johansson is the most recent SDSU individual champion at the event, captured medalist honors in 2001 after defeating Jason Higton of Pacific on the first hole of a sudden death playoff. In addition, Kris Moe emerged victorious at the Western in 1983, while Ron O'Connor accomplished the feat in 1960, guiding the Aztecs to their only team title in the history of the event.
Other notable winners of the Western Intercollegiate include Ken Venturi (1951, 1953), Johnny Miller (1968), Howard Twitty (1972), Peter Jacobsen (1974), Mark O'Meara (1978), Bobby Clampett (1980), Duffy Waldorf (1984), Arron Oberholser (1996), Joel Kribel (1997, 1999) and Jason Allred (2000).
Following the Western Intercollegiate, San Diego State will have a little over a weeks to prepare for the 2016 Mountain West championships, scheduled for April 22-24 at OMNI National Golf Club in Tucson, Ariz.