Clemson, SC—Clemson will return to the course Sunday, March 19 at the 54-hole Linger Longer Invitational at the Great Waters Golf Club in Eatonton, Ga. The Tigers will be one of 16 teams in the field that includes seven teams from the ACC and the SEC.
The 16 teams will play 18 holes a day, Sunday through Tuesday, March 19-21 on the par 72 course that measures 7,436 yards.
The field is led by top ranked Vanderbilt, who has three of the top 13 players in the nation according to the latest Golfstat rankings. Georgia Tech (7th), Virginia (16), Alabama (18) and Georgia (24) are the other top 25 teams in the field according to at least one of the major computer rankings.
Also in the field are Arkansas, Mercer, Augusta, Charlotte, Chattanooga, UNG Greensboro, South Alabama, South Florida, Wofford and host school Kennessaw State.
This will be Clemson’s fifth appearance at the Linger Longer. The Tigers played previously in 2008, 2014, 2015 and 2022. Clemson finished fourth in 2014 and last year. The fourth-place finish last year in the 15 team field featured a 12-under-par team score, the Tigers best score vs. par in the event. Georgia won the team championship with an 836 score. Clemson’s Jacob Bridgeman was the medalist with a 16-under-par score, at the time tied for the best score vs. par in a 54-hole event in Clemson history.
That record of 16-under-par was broken earlier this year by current Tiger sophomore Andrew Swanson, who had an 18-under-par score in earning medalist honors at the Ka’anapali Classic in Hawaii. He will lead the Tigers into the 2023 Linger Longer holding the number-one position in Jordan Byrd’s lineup. The native of Bluffton, SC has a team best 71.76 stroke average this year with five rounds in the 60s and eight under-par rounds. He has been Clemson’s top player in each of the last three tournaments.
Kian Rose, a red-shirt freshman from South Africa, will be the number-two player in the order. He has a 72.22 stroke average this year, third on the team, but he has been attempting to come back from a wrist injury and this will be just his second tournament of the spring.
Jonathan Nielsen, a native of Denmark, is in is first year with the Tigers after transferring to Clemson from Carson Newman where he was a second-team Division II All-American last year. So far for the Tigers he has a 71.94 stroke average, second best on the team, with a top 10 finish and seven under-par rounds. This will be his second tournament of the spring.
Thomas Higgins, a freshman from Ireland, will also be in the team lineup for the second time this year. He has a 73.22 stroke average.
Alberto Dominguez is a junior transfer from Spain, giving Clemson four foreign born players in the team lineup for the first time in history. Dominguez was a two-time Division II All-American at Erskine where he had 28 top 10 finishes. Dominguez has a 73.33 stroke average so far this year in four tournaments.
Live scoring will be available each day at golfstat.com.
