CLEMSON, S.C. — Clemson returns to action this weekend (Oct. 22-24) at the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate in Alpharetta, Ga. It will be the third and final fall tournament for Jordan Byrd’s first Clemson team.
This will be Clemson’s 14th appearance at this event that was once called the U.S. Collegiate Invitational. Clemson won the tournament at this course in the Springs of 2006 and 2009. This will be Clemson’s first appearance at the tournament since October of 2019 when the Tigers finished seventh out of 14 teams.
Byrd will take a new lineup to this tournament as two freshmen will compete as members of the Clemson team for the first time.
Freshmen Andrew Swanson and Kian Rose will join veterans Jacob Bridgeman, Kyle Cottam and Zack Gordon.
Swanson is a true freshman from Bluffton, S.C., the same area that produced former Clemson All-American Bryson Nimmer. Swanson was the number-one ranked player in South Carolina according to the AJGA coming out of high school last year. He has played in one tournament as an individual so far this year and finished a strong eighth with a six-under -par 207 at the J.T. Poston Intercollegiate.
Rose also competed at the J.T. Poston and finished with a 220 score, good enough for 59th place. He entered Clemson in January of 2021 and is considered to be a freshman as well. He came to Clemson from South Africa and is just the third foreign born player in the history of the Clemson men’s golf program.
Bridgeman will be back in the number-one position in the Clemson lineup this weekend. The senior from Inman, S.C. has a 68.67 stroke average for six rounds this year and already has four rounds in the 60s. He is eight-under-par for those six rounds. Ranked 12th in the latest PGA Tour University rankings, Bridgeman finished ninth with an 11-under par score of 199 at the season opening Maui Jim Invitational in Arizona, helping the Tigers to a second-place finish.
Cottam, who started the year with a fifth-place finish at the Maui Jim with a 196 score, tied for second in Clemson history, will also be in the lineup this weekend at the course that is less than two hours from the Clemson campus. Cottam has a 69.00 stroke average so far this season and has a pair of under-par rounds, and one at even par.
Zack Gordon rounds out the list of seniors in Byrd’s lineup. The native of Gaffney, SC has a 70.33 stroke average for his six rounds this year that have included a pair of rounds in the 60s.
All three seniors played at the 2019 Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate. Bridgeman finished 18th with a 218 score, while Gordon, playing as an individual, was 32nd at 220. Cottam shot 230 for a 69th place finish.
Clemson will be part of a national field that features 13 teams from all four time zones. Clemson is one of four ACC schools in the field, host Georgia Tech, Virginia and Wake Forest will be in the field. SEC teams from Tennessee and Texas A&M also will take part. The west coast is well represented with Southern California, Stanford and UCLA traveling to Georgia for this event.
The 13 teams will play 18 holes per day, October 22-24 on the par 72 course that measures 7,092 yards. Tee times will be announced later in the week and live scoring will be available on golfstat.com. The address for the Golf Club of Georgia is, 1 Golf Club Drive, Alpharetta, Ga. 30005.
