Sept. 20, 2017
SAN DIEGO ââ'¬" The San Diego State men's golf team returns to the fairways this weekend when it competes in the 64th annual William H. Tucker Intercollegiate, Sept. 22-23, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The first two rounds of the 54-hole tournament will be contested on Friday, while the final 18 holes are slated for a Saturday completion on the par-72, 7,556-yard UNM Championship Course. A live scoring link courtesy of Golfstat will be available on GoAztecs.com, with a 7:45 a.m. MT/6:45 a.m. PT start scheduled for both days.
In addition to host New Mexico, the Aztecs, who are defending tournament champions, will square off against four other Mountain West rivals ranked among the top 40 in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin ratings, including No. 6 Colorado State, No. 17 Wyoming, No. 30 Nevada and No. 38 UNLV. SDSU will also lock horns with two other top-50 squads in No. 22 Colorado and No. 47 UTEP, while Arizona, Brigham Young, Denver, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, San Diego, Washington and Washington State round out the 16-team field.
Aztec head coach Ryan Donovan will utilize the same lineup from the season-opening Gopher Invitational, including seniors PJ Samiere (Kailua, Hawaii) and Blake Abercrombie (Rocklin, Calif.), sophomores Trevor Norby (Carlsbad, Calif.) and Eric Ghim (Glendale, Ariz.), along with freshman Puwit Anupansuebsai (Nakhon Phanom, Thailand). In addition, fellow classmates Ryan McCoy (Temecula, Calif.) and Steve Sugimoto (San Diego, Calif.) will both debut as an unattached competitors.
The Aztecs are coming off a 10th-place performance two weeks ago at the Gopher Invitational, where they shot a collective 23-over-par 875 to finish nine strokes behind Pepperdine (+14) for fifth place. Individually, SDSU was led by Samiere, who tied for 13th at 3-over 216, highlighted by a final-round 68. Norby also cracked the top 25, landing in the 22nd position at 5-over 218.
The Aztecs will be competing at the Tucker Intercollegiate for the 10th time in the last 12 years while making their 15th appearance overall. Last season, SDSU captured the team title out of 16 schools with a collective total of 1-under-par 863, while Colorado State (+9) and Brigham Young (+14) grabbed the second and third spots, respectively. The Aztecs also walked away with the crown in 2010, rallying from a seven-stroke deficit during the final round to edge North Texas by one stroke.
Samiere was SDSU's No. 1 golfer at the Tucker Intercollegiate in 2016, tying his career-best placement with a runner-up effort at 4-under 212 to finish two strokes behind medalist Blake Cannon of Colorado State, who has since completed his eligibility. Abercrombie also fared well in last year's event, tying for third with a 2-under 214, highlighted by a final-round 69.
Other notables from the 2016 Tucker Intercollegiate include Shintaro Ban of UNLV (T-3rd), Rhett Rasmussen (T-6th) and Patrick Fishburn (T-8th) of BYU and Sean Carlon of New Mexico (T-8th).
The Tucker Intercollegiate, which was named in honor of former University of New Mexico groundskeeper William H. Tucker, is the second-oldest men's college tournament in the country behind only the New England Intercollegiate. Previous individual competitors include Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Tommy Armour III, Tim Herron, Duffy Waldorf, Notah Begay and Matt Kuchar.
Following this weekend's event, the Aztecs will have another two-week hiatus before returning to action for the Alister MacKenzie Invitational, Oct. 9-10, at the exclusive Meadow Club in Fairfax, California.