Three Tigers Ranked in Final Top 65

June 3, 2009

Clemson, SC – The Clemson golf team is ranked sixth in the final Sagarin Computer rankings. Three members of the team are ranked in the top 65 of the final individual rankings.

Clemson failed to reach the NCAA championship round, but had a strong enough regular season against the nation’s fifth toughest schedule to still rank sixth in the final computer rankings. Clemson won the United States Collegiate Championship in Marietta, GA in April against the strongest field of any regular season tournament in the nation this year. That field included each of the top 11 teams in the nation.

Oklahoma State was the top team in the computer rankings with a 69.65 rating, followed by Georgia at 69.95. NCAA Champion Texas A&M was 12th and runner up Arkansas was ninth. Michigan, who made the Final Four of the Match play competition, was 34th.

Clemson finished the year with a 100-38-3 record against all competition in the 10 tournaments this year, a 73 percent winning percentage.

Kyle Stanley was the top ranked Clemson player this year in the Sagarin rankings with a 69.51 rating. His number-five final ranking is the highest by a Clemson golfer since D.J. Trahan was second and Jack Ferguson was fifth in 2003, the year Clemson won the national championship. He played the third most difficult schedule in the nation. It was the highest final ranking for Stanley in his three years at Clemson. He was seventh as a freshman in 2006-07 and 34th as a sophomore in 2007-08.

The top ranked player in the nation was Matt Hill of NC State, who won the NCAA Championship last week. Stanley did have a winning record against Hill in head to head competition over the course of the season and had a 73-34-4 record against the other top 25 players in the nation. Stanley had more wins over top 25 players than any other player in the nation.

Joining Stanley in the top 65 were Ben Martin and David May. Martin finished 57th in the final ranking, his high ranking in three seasons at Clemson. He was 64th as a freshman in 2006-07 and 91st as a sophomore in 2007-08. It was the first top 100 ranking for May, who was Co-Champion of the ACC this year. This was the first time Clemson has had three players ranked in the top 65 of the final Sagarin rankings since 2005-06 when Brian Duncan, Stephen Poole and Vince Hatfield were all in the top 50.