Men’s Golf BULLDOG BITS
AUGUSTA, Ga. – The No. 26 Mississippi State men's golf team is set to compete on golf 's grandest stage, playing at the Augusta Haskins Award Invitational today and Sunday just 4 miles from the fabled Augusta National and The Master's.
The tournament will be played on the 7,140-yard, par72 Forest Hills Golf Course in Augusta, Georgia. The course was chosen "Best Public Golf Course" by Augusta Magazine and was host to the 2011 NCAA National Championship. MSU and the rest of the field will play 54 holes over two days, with the first two rounds of the tournament being played today and the final round teeing off Sunday morning.
Mississippi State is one of eight top-50 teams in the 15team field that also includes No. 1 North Carolina, and future Southeastern Conference foes in No. 14 Oklahoma and No. 18 Texas.
"Our preparation for this tournament was very good the past couple of weeks," Mississippi State head coach Dusty Smith said. "Guys are really taking ownership of the team and understand the areas in which we need to improve in order for us to be the best at the end."
The Bulldogs are set to tee off the first round at 7:30 a.m. this morning. MSU will send out their sixth unique team lineup of the season. The Bulldogs will be represented by Hunter Logan, Garrett Endicott, Josep Serra, Drew Wilson and Alejandro Pedryc. The five players included in team scoring will also be joined by Harrison Davis, competing individually for the first time this season.
This year marks the fifth time in program history that Mississippi State has competed in Augusta and the first since 1997. That year, both Mississippi State, as a team, and Michael Connell, as an individual, won the event, in a season that saw the Bulldogs reach the NCAA tournament.
Logan enters the tournament as the nation's No. 63 golfer according to the Clippd rankings and has shot par or better in 13 rounds this season, which is tied for the second-most on the team. There have been 10 of those rounds in the 60s, which leads the team, and he has finished inside the top-three twice this season.