Clemson, S.C.—The 11th ranked (Golfweek) Clemson men’s golf team will head to Lahaina, Hawaii to play in the Ka’anapali Collegiate Classic this weekend. The 20-team tournament will be the sixth and final tournament of the fall for Larry Penley’s Tigers.
Clemson has had a solid fall with a victory at the Jack Nicklaus Match Play and third- place finishes in strong fields at the Maui Jim Intercollegiate in Arizona and the Nike Golf Collegiate in Oregon. Clemson has played the most difficult schedule in the fall according to Golfstat.
The 20-team field includes Power Five conference teams from Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, UCLA, Washington, West Virginia and Georgia. Oklahoma is ranked number-one in the nation in the latest Golfweek poll. UCLA, Washington and Georgia are also top 25 teams according to Golfstat and Golfweek.
Clemson finished fourth in the 20-team field last year. Turk Pettit led the way with a sixth-place finish thanks to a 10-underpar 206 for the three rounds. Jacob Bridgeman was the second best Tiger with a six-under-par 210 score and finished ninth.
Clemson will take one senior, three juniors and a sophomore to play the Royal Ka’anapali Country Club Course that is par 72 and 6700 yards in length. Bridgeman, the youngest Tiger in the lineup, leads the team in stroke average so far this year with a 7.17 figure. He has five rounds in the 60s and seven of his 12 rounds have been at par or better. Bridgeman has three straight top 20 finishes, including a 10th place at the Nike Collegiate.
Turk Pettit, a junior, will be Clemson’s number-two player with a 71.50 stroke average. Since a slow start in the first tournament of the year, Pettit has come on strong to shoot 12-underpar for his last three tournaments. He finished 11th at the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate in his last outing.
Colby Patton is junior who has been consistent throughout the fall. He had three consecutive 21st place finishes before finishing 35th at the Golf Club of Georgia. He has a 71.67 stroke average for the year, third best on the team, and has five rounds in the 60s to tie for the team lead.
William Nottingham is a senior with a 72.08 stroke average so far this year. The native of Tennessee finished 18th at the Maui Jim Collegiate and has finished in the top 35 in every tournament this year. This will be his 36th career tournament as a Tiger. He went over the 300-birdie mark at the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate in his last tournament.
Kyle Cottam is a third junior in the lineup. He has a 72.25 stroke average for fourth tournaments. He had a third-place finish at the Carpet Classic in the first tournament of the year. Sophomore Zack Gordon will play as an individual this weekend. He enters with a 73.67 stroke average. Last year he had a 63 in the opening round of the tournament, tied for the second best score in Clemson history.
Live scoring throughout the tournament will be available on golfstat.com. The Tigers will play the first round with players from UCLA, UCONN and Gonzaga in the shotgun formatted event. All players begin at 8:30 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time. 2:30 PM on the east coast.
