Feb. 17, 2017
SAN DIEGO ââ'¬" After a break of nearly four months from competition, the 14th-ranked San Diego State men's golf team opens its spring schedule next week when it travels to the Coachella Valley to participate in The Prestige at PGA WEST, Feb. 20-22, in La Quinta, Calif.
The Aztecs are one of 13 schools scheduled to participate in the 17th annual event, which will consist of 18-hole rounds on three consecutive days at the Greg Norman Course, with UC Davis and Stanford serving as co-hosts. The course will play as a par-71, 7,076-yard track during the first two rounds, while the layout shrinks to 7,065 yards for the final round.
Along with San Diego State, the tournament features eight additional schools ranked among the top 65 in the latest Golfstat index, including No. 5 Texas Tech, No. 8 Stanford, No. 11 Oklahoma, No. 16 LSU, No. 27 Arizona State, No. 49 Pepperdine, No. 55 Saint Mary's and No. 62 Iowa State, while East Tennessee State, San Diego, UC Davis and Stirling University of Scotland round out the list of competing squads.
A live scoring link for the three rounds, which commence with tee times each day at 7:30 a.m. PT, will be available courtesy of Golfstat on GoAztecs.com.
SDSU head coach Ryan Donovan will accompany six golfers to the Palm Springs region, including the starting lineup Nahum Mendoza III (San Diego, Calif.), PJ Samiere (Kailua, Hawaii), Blake Abercrombie (Rocklin, Calif.), Brian Song (Beverly Hills, Calif.) and Pablo Matesanz (Irun, Spain), while Otto Vanhatalo (Espoo, Finland) is scheduled to compete as an unattached golfer.
The Aztecs are coming off an impressive fall slate when they posted top-six finishes in all four tournaments, highlighted by victories at the William H. Tucker Intercollegiate and the Saint Mary's Invitational. In addition, SDSU landed in the runner-up spot at the season-opening Gopher Invitational to go with a sixth-place tie at the Alister MacKenzie Invitational.
Individually, Mendoza leads the Aztecs with a 70.83 scoring average through four events, while Samiere ranks second (71.00), followed by Abercrombie (71.58). Samiere posted a pair of second-place finishes at the William H. Tucker Intercollegiate and the Saint Mary's Invite, while Mendoza was SDSU's top golfer at the Alister MacKenzie, where he tied for fourth with a collegiate-best 13-under 200, which also tied him for the sixth spot in program history for lowest 54-hole score.
The Aztecs enter the spring at No. 14 in the latest Golfstat rankings, while the Scarlet and Black is listed 17th in the Golfweek/Sagarin index. Individually, Mendoza is currently 76th in the Golfstat Cup standings, while Samiere checks in at No. 85. A quick look at the most recent Golfweek individual rankings finds Mendoza at No. 55, while Samiere is 69th.
SDSU will be competing at The Prestige at PGA WEST for the sixth straight season after placing third out of 15 teams a year ago. The Aztecs posted a combined 4-under 848, finishing eight strokes behind runner-up Arizona State (-8) and 22 shots in back of team champion LSU (-26).
With the graduation of Aztec standouts Ryann Ree and Riccardo Michelini, Mendoza is SDSU's lone returning starter from the event last year, where he shot a 2-under 211 to tie for eighth, which marked his highest finish in three appearances at the tournament. Samiere and Song both played at The Prestige in 2015, tying for 21st and 48th, respectively, while Abercrombie and Matesanz will be participating in next week's event for the first time.
Mendoza is also the second-highest returning individual from last year's tournament following Arizona State's Jared duToit, who finished a solo seventh at 4-under 209. Other notables back in the mix include UC Davis' Ben Corfee, who tied for 14th in 2016, along with LSU's Sam Burns and Eric Ricard.
The Greg Norman Course has played host to The Prestige at PGA WEST on nine different occasions from 2004-08, 2011-14, and 2016. Other venues included the Desert Willow Golf Club (2000-01), the La Quinta Mountain Resort Course (2002-03), the TPC Stadium Course (2009-10) and the Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course (2015). In it is history, The Prestige was a fixture on the fall segment of college men's golf schedule for 12 years before moving to the spring in 2013.
Following next week's event, the Aztecs will return to the fairways for the Southwestern Invitational, Feb. 27-28, at North Ranch Country Club in Westlake Village, Calif.