Frogs Open Spring Campaign in Hawaii
1/31/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
Jan. 31, 2011
LIVE TOURNAMENT RESULTS - GOLFSTAT.COM
FORT WORTH—The TCU men's golf team will tee off the 2011 spring season this week at the 21st annual Amer Ari Invitational in Kona, Hawaii. The tournament, which runs Wednesday through Friday, will be played at the Waikoloa King's Course.
TCU will start things off with a practice round Tuesday. The tournament itself will feature a 7:30 a.m. shotgun start each day prior to 18 holes of competition. Competing for the Frogs will be four returning golfers in senior Tom Hoge, juniors Eli Cole and Johan de Beer and sophomore Pontus Gad and one newcomer in freshman John Antle.
Hoge leads the Frogs into the season while looking to return to the All-American form that saw him finish third at the 2009 NCAA Championships as a sophomore. The Fargo, N.D., native ranked third on the squad during the fall in stroke average and tied for the low round on the squad with a 70 on the opening day of the Isleworth Collegiate Invitational in Orlando, Fla. Hoge's 14th place finish at the tournament ranked as TCU's top placing in three fall events.
Leading the Frogs in the fall was South Africa native de Beer, who posted the team's top stroke average. A two-time All-Mountain West Conference selection, de Beer recorded a 73.36 average round a season ago to rank as the squad's top returning player following the graduation of fellow Frog Travis Woolf.
Cole and Gad, two regulars in the Frogs' 2009-10 lineup, also return. Gad ranked second on the team in the fall in stroke average, while Cole was fifth. Gad, a native of Linkoping, Sweden, competed in 11 tournaments as a sophomore. Cole, who hails from Beverly Hills, Calif., played in six events, including both the NCAA Central Regionals and NCAA Championships.
Antle, a product of Graham, Texas, will be making his first appearance in the TCU lineup this week. One of only two freshmen on the Frogs' roster, Antle was a two-time all-state honoree for Graham High School as both a junior and senior.
A talented field featuring several of the nation's top programs will participate in the Amer Ari Invitational, including five of the top-10 teams in the latest Golfweek rankings in No. 2 UCLA, No. 4 Oklahoma State, No. 5 Georgia Tech, No. 7 Texas and No. 9 Stanford. Other ranked squads include No. 22 Texas Tech, No. 24 USC and No. 25 Washington. Rounding out the field will be Arizona State, Cal-Davis, Colorado, Florida State, Hawaii Hilo, Hawaii Manoa, Oregon, Oregon State, San Francisco, San Jose State and Western Washington.
Among the individual talent competing this week will be six of the nation's top-9 ranked golfers: No. 2 Peter Uihlein (Oklahoma State), No. 3 Andrew Yun (Stanford), No. 4 Kevin Tway (Oklahoma State), No. 5 J.T. Griffin (Georgia Tech), No. 6 Patrick Cantlay (UCLA) and No. 9 Bobby Hudson (Texas). Other participants appearing in the top 20 include No. 12 Gregor Main (UCLA), No. 13 Matt Smith (Texas Tech), No. 14 Mario Clemens (UCLA) and No. 16 Pontus Widegren (UCLA).
Following this week's tournament, TCU will continue its spring campaign Feb. 27 through March 1 at the John Hayt Collegiate Invitational in Jacksonville, Fla.
Players Mentioned
