SAN DIEGO – The San Diego State men's golf team will wrap up its fall schedule early next week when it ventures north to the Monterey Peninsula for the Saint Mary's Invitational, Nov. 4-6, at the famed Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach, California.
The Aztecs will be making their fifth straight appearance at the three-day, 54-hole tournament, which gets underway Monday morning on the par-71, 7,002-yard course layout with tee times as early as 7:30 a.m. PT. A live scoring link courtesy of Golfstat will be available for all three rounds.
Ranked 36th in the latest Golfstat index, SDSU will battle nine additional top-75 squads next week in Brigham Young (6), Arizona (14), Oregon State (17), Colorado State (20), Utah (52), New Mexico (56), San Francisco (60), host Saint Mary's (64) and Santa Clara (68), while Coastal Carolina, Fresno State, Oregon, Pacific, Toledo and UNC Wilmington round out the roster of participating teams.
For the second time this fall, Aztec head coach Ryan Donovan will employ the starting lineup of Puwit Anupansuebsai (Nakhon Phanom, Thailand), Christian Banke (Danville, Calif.), Leo Oyo (Tokyo, Japan), Callum Bruce (Banff, Scotland) and Steve Sugimoto (San Diego, Calif.), while Zihao Jin (Beijing, China) will compete as an individual golfer.
Idle since Oct.15, San Diego State captured the team and individual titles in its last outing at the Bill Cullum Invitational in Simi Valley, California, where it set a tournament record with a collective 40-under par 824, marking the third-best 54-hole score in relation to par in school history.
In addition, Anupansuebsai earned his first collegiate victory thanks to a scintillating 18-under 198, which also established a program standard for lowest score in relation to par in a three-round event. Not to be outdone, Oyo logged his highest career finish with a solo fifth-place effort at 10-under 206, while Banke tied for 12th with a 5-under 211.
With his performance, Anupansuebsai enters the week ranked 24th by Golfstat, while Banke checks in at No. 96.
After three starts, Anupansuebsai leads squads with a 68.25 scoring average, followed by Banke (70.45), Oyo (70.45) and Bruce (72.27), who are the only three Aztecs to play in all four tournaments for the Scarlet and Black this fall.
Next week's event marks the 14th edition of the Saint Mary's Invitational, which returns to Poppy Hills for the fifth consecutive season after a five-year run at Bayonet and Black Horse Golf Courses in Seaside, Calif.
SDSU has logged consecutive seventh-place finishes at the tournament after taking home back-to-back titles in 2015 and 2016. Oyo is the Aztecs' top returner from last year's Pebble Beach excursion, where he tied for 12th with a 2-under 211, highlighted by a career-best 65 in the second round. In addition, Anupansuebsai tied for 39th with a 5-over 218, while Sugimoto landing in the 45th spot at 8-over 221.
With 2018 team champion USC skipping this year's gathering, Brigham Young is the top returning school after finishing second a year ago with a combined 13-under 839, while Arizona (-2) took fourth, followed by Colorado State (+1). BYU's Peter Kuest, who collected medalist honors with a 13-under 200, is expected to defend his title, while Oregon's Craig Ronne (3rd, -6) and San Francisco's Tim Widing (T-6th, -4) are also likely back in the mix, along with Arizona's David Laskin (T-6th, -4) and Trevor Werbylo (T-6th, -4).
Poppy Hills opened in 1986 and has since co-hosted the PGA Tour's AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am from 1991-2009, as well as the Spalding Pebble Beach Invitational (1989, 1990, 1992, 1993) and the 1991 NCAA Men's Golf Championships. Designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., Poppy Hills became the first course to be owned and operated by a golf association in the United States when the Northern California Golf Association built the club to serve as its headquarters and tournament home.
With a focus on water conservation, Poppy Hills underwent an extensive renovation in 2013 by improving irrigation and drainage. The Jones design firm reinvented the course architecturally, restoring each hole to its natural elevation along the forest floor, softening doglegs and contours, rebuilding all 18 greens with bentgrass, eliminating rough and introducing native waste areas that reduce irrigated turf by nearly 25 percent. The refurbished Poppy Hills opened in April 2014 and has joined the course rotation for the Champions Tour's PURE Insurance Championship.
Following the Saint Mary's Invitational, San Diego State will take a three-month break from competition before opening its spring schedule at The Prestige at PGA West, Feb. 17-19, 2020, in La Quinta, California.