Clemson, SC—Clemson concludes its men’s golf regular season at the Lewis Chitengwa Memorial Tournament in Charlottesville, Va. April 8-9. The 13-team field will play 36 holes on Monday and 18 on Tuesday at the par 71 Birdwood Golf Course on the University of Virginia campus.
The tournament is named in honor of former University of Virginia player Lewis Chitengwa, who was an All-American for the Cavaliers in 1995 and 1996. He finished seventh at the 1996 NCAA Championships where he also beat Tiger Woods to win the National Long Drive Contest.
Tragically, Chitengwa contracted meningitis while playing on the Canadian Professional Tour at a tournament in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in the summer of 2001 and died at the age of 26.
This year’s field for the Lewis Chitengwa will include four of the top 12 teams in the nation, featuring #6 Florida State, #10 Tennessee, #11 Arkansas and #12 Virginia. The field also includes Clemson Liberty, Loyola (Maryland), Maryland, North Florida, Northwestern, Texas State, Toledo, and Virginia Tech. Nine of the top 50 players in the latest Spikemark rankings are expected to be in the field.
The Tigers have had a strong spring so far, recording a 53-23-1 record against the field in five tournaments, including a victory at the Briar’s Creek Intercollegiate.
Clemson will take three seniors, a junior and a sophomore to Charlottesville. The Tigers are led by Jonathan Nielsen who is coming off a third place finish against a 168 player field at The Goodwin. It was his fourth top 8 finish of the season and he has moved into a #85 national ranking according to Spikemark. He has lowered his stroke average to 70.80 after his 207 score for three rounds at The Goodwin.
Thomas Higgins is listed #2 in Clemson’s order for this event and the sophomore from Ireland has a 72.60 stroke average. He has six rounds in the 60s among his seven under-par rounds. Andrew Swanson has a 72.48 average and is listed third. He finished second at Briar’s Creek and sixth at the Wake Forest Invitational at Pinehurst #2.
Senior Alberto Dominguez is fourth in the lineup with a 72.70 average. Senior transfer Calahan Keever rounds out the team lineup with a 73.06 stroke average. It will be his first action in the Clemson lineup since the fall. Sophomore Austin Scott will also compete in the tournament as an individual.
This will be Clemson’s fourth appearance in a tournament on the Birdwood course. Clemson won the 1993 NCAA Regional there, one of seven regional championships in Clemson history. Bobby Doolittle led the way for Clemson with a second place finish. Clemson also finished second of nine teams in 1988, and third of 17 teams in 1991 in regular season tournaments hosted by Virginia at Birdwood.
Live scoring will be available on golfstat.com.
