Men's Golf Prepares For Spring Season With Practice Round At TPC Sawgrass
Monday, January 28, 2008 | Men's Golf
Less than two weeks until the start of the spring season and the Gator Invitational, the 14th-ranked University of Florida men's golf team has enjoyed a productive off-season that included a practice round at the Stadium Course of the TPC Sawgrass last Saturday.
Eight members of the Gator squad qualified to play the course that is home to the PGA Tour's prestigious Players Championship, dubbed as golf's fifth major. Head coach Buddy Alexander said the experience is one the players benefited from and will never forget.
“It's a pretty special place,” said Alexander. “Kids that age get really excited about playing golf courses like that. They qualified to go to see who would be going. It is a pretty special deal for those guys.”
Alexander and the Gators seek to defend their SunTrust Gator Invitational title for the fifth straight season, Feb. 9-10, at the Mark Bostick Golf Course. They hope to build on a fall season that saw the squad earn two third-place finishes at the Inverness Invitational and Callaway Golf Collegiate Match Play Championship.
“This is a pretty solid team,” said Alexander. “When you don't play particularly well in the fall, it motivates you to work a little bit harder in the off-season. This team has worked really hard this semester. Ultimately, they have to take it upon themselves to go the extra mile. They have done that, and I feel pretty good about this group.”
Two-time All-American Billy Horschel (Grant, Fla.) led the squad with a 70.50 scoring average in the fall with less than 10 rounds, despite missing the first two tournaments of the season to compete for the United States at the prestigious Walker Cup. Senior Manuel Villegas (Medellin, Colombia) boasted a scoring average of 72.08 that tied for sixth best in the league.
“When you have guys like that on your team, it makes it easy to look up and see where you want to be and where you want to go in terms of a player,” said Alexander.
UF's fall schedule ranked as the seventh-toughest in the nation and the second-most difficult in the Southeastern Conference according to Golfweek. The Gators seek to perpetuate that level with trips to the John Hayt Invitational, Las Vegas Intercollegiate, Chris Schenkel Intercollegiate and Hootie at Bulls Bay Invitational later this spring.
This year's SunTrust Gator Invitational field features five teams ranked in the current Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index Top 25, including No. 8 Duke, No. 15 Florida State, No. 18 Wake Forest and No. 24 Mississippi State.
“There aren't any easy spots on that schedule,” said Alexander. “The Gator (Invitational) might be the weakest field we play this year, but there is nothing weak about it. We are going to play some pretty good teams, and I think that is a real positive thing for us. We are going to have to play some pretty good golf.”
