Florida Men's Golf To Compete in Tavistock Collegiate Invitational
Friday, October 17, 2014 | Men's Golf
The Florida men's golf team will remain in the Sunshine State for its third fall tournament, when the Gators travel to Orlando to compete in the Tavistock Collegiate Invitational beginning Sunday.
The three-day tournament, hosted by UCF and Texas Tech, features a 15-team field with seven top-20 squads.
Freshman Ryan Celano sits atop the UF lineup after securing the No. 1 position by winning his second straight team qualifier. The lone underclassman in this week's lineup, Celano is coming off a top-10 finish in his collegiate golf debut.
Junior A.J. Crouch joins three seniors, J.D. Tomlinson, Eric Banks, and Thomas Stewart, to round out the rest of the Orange and Blue team heading to Lake Nona Golf & Country Club this weekend.
In their most recent tournament, the Gators notched a runner-up finish at the Wolf Run Intercollegiate in Zionsville, Ind., from Sept. 20-21. Their last showing in the Tavistock Intercollegiate Invitational was a sixth-place finish in the 2012 event.
Head Coach JC Deacon
On his expectations for the tournament:
“I think we've improved enough from the first tournament, when we played against a lot of those big teams. I think we have put enough time in and cared about what we are doing and have improved enough every day that we're going to be able to go in there and compete. I'm expecting the guys to be competitive and beat some teams and hopefully be right around the lead by the end of the week. There's no reason why we shouldn't be – we have five very capable players. Ryan Celano has won the last two qualifiers. He's playing phenomenal golf, and he's ready to compete on the highest level, so I'm really excited to see what they do. I'm not expecting anything or hoping for anything. I just want to go and play hard and do the right things and apply what we've been learning. I think we're going to be fine.”
On what it will be like to compete close to UF:
“Being close to home, putting on Bermuda grass, chipping on Bermuda grass and rough, that's almost a little bit of a home-field advantage. We get the Florida climate and a lot of parents are going to be there, so it should be a really fun weekend for all of us.”
Course Information: The Lake Nona Golf & Country Club is a par-72, 7,200-yard course.
Tournament Information: The tournament will run from Sunday-Tuesday, Oct. 19-21, and is hosted by UCF and Texas Tech.
Format: Three-day, 54-hole tournament with 18 holes played each day.
The Gators' Lineup:
Freshman Ryan Celano (Naples, Fla.)
Senior J.D. Tomlinson (Gainesville, Fla.)
Senior Eric Banks (Truro, Canada)
Junior A.J. Crouch (Jacksonville, Fla.)
Senior Thomas Stewart (Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.)
Eyeing the Competition: The field consists of 15 teams from nine conferences. Seven teams are ranked as top-20 squads by Golfweek's latest ranking, with Illinois and Baylor holding the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, respectively.
Tournament Field (Golfweek's Top 25):
Arkansas
Baylor (2)
California (19)
Florida State (6)
FLORIDA
Georgia
GRU-Augusta
Illinois (1)
Indiana
New Mexico (11)
North Florida
Texas Tech (10)
UCF
UNLV
Vanderbilt (15)
Follow the Gators: Scoring will be available on GolfStat.com after each round. A complete recap with full results will be posted on GatorZone.com following the day's play.
For complete coverage of the Gators' men's golf program, visit GatorZone.com, follow @GatorZoneGolf on Twitter and 'like' the University of Florida Men's Golf page on Facebook.
