Stanford's US Intercollegiate has tie to the PGA Tour for first time

The PGA Tour and college golf are linking up for the first time at Stanford's U.S. Intercollegiate tourney.  The medalist of this year's event will receive a full exemption into the field of the PGA Tour's Reno-Tahoe Open to be held July 15-18.




STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford's men's golf team recorded a final round team score of 276 to finish seventh at the U.S. Intercollegiate played at Stanford Golf Course. Complete scoring is available at http://www.golfstatresults.com/public/index.cfm?tournament_id=1655.

The Cardinal's 54-hole team score of 853 (+13) were 14 strokes behind Oregon, which won the team title with a one-under score of 839. San Diego State finished second at 842 (+2), followed by Washington (843; +3) and UCLA (849; +5) and USC (849; +5).

Daniel Miernicki of Oregon claimed medalist honors with a eight-under par 202 on rounds of 70, 68 and 64, edging out Nick Taylor of Washington (205).

Stanford was led by sophomore David Chung, who shot a final round 67 to finish tied for sixth, three strokes behind Miernicki.

Steve Ziegler's final round of 65 valuted the junior from 32nd into a tied for 11th. His 65 was the second lowest score of the third round behind Miernicki's 64.

"We competed well on the last day but dug ourselves too big of a hole over the first two rounds," said head coach Conrad Ray. "I saw some good signs today, especially with the play of Chung and Ziegler."

Freshman Andre De Decker, playing as an individual, tied for 44th at 219 (71-75-73).
Senior Jordan Cox tied for 51st with a 10-over score of 220, closing with a 72.
Freshman Andrew Yun was also 10-over at 220 after a final round 73.
Senior Joseph Bramlett tied for 57th with an 11-over 221, carding a 72 over his final 18 holes.
Graham Brockington, also playing as an individual, tied for 57th with a 221 on rounds of 75, 74 and 72.
Steve Kearney shot a final round 66 and tied for 68th at 223.
Sihwan Kim shot a final round 72 and finished tied for 79th at 226.
Wilson Bowen tied for 94th at 233 on rounds of 86, 75 and 72.

Stanford will next be in action at the Pac-10 Championships, set for Apr. 26-28 at the Karsten Course in Tempe, Ariz.

PRE-TOURNEY BACKGROUND:
STANFORD, Calif. - The 42nd Annual U.S. Intercollegiate Golf Tournament, featuring five of the top-10 teams in the nation, gets underway on Sunday, April 11 at the Stanford University Golf Course.
Teams will tee off on holes 1 and 10 on Sunday and Monday starting at 9:00 a.m. and use a 7:30 a.m. shotgun start for Tuesday's final round. Stanford Golf Course will play at a length of 6,727 yards and to a par of 70 for this event.

The 20-team field features five teams ranked in the top-10 by Golfstat, including in No. 2 Stanford, No. 3 Washington, No. 4 Oregon, No. 6 UCLA and No. 8 Arizona State.
Other teams in the field include California, Denver, Fresno State, Hawaii, Lamar, Long Beach State, Oregon State, Pepperdine, San Diego State, San Francisco, San Jose State, UC Davis, UC Irvine, USC and Washington State.
Six of the nation's top-20 players are also expected to be in the field, including No. 1 Diego Velasquez of Oregon State, No. 3 John Chin of UC Irvine, No. 4 Eugene Wong of Oregon, No. 8  Sihwan Kim of Stanford, No. 17 and defending champion Nick Taylor of Washington and No. 19 Brooks Koepka of Denver.

The medalist of this year's U.S. Intercollegiate will earn an automatic exemption into the 2010 Reno-Tahoe Open, which will take place from July 15-18 at the Montreux Golf & Country Club.

"Over the years the U.S. Intercollegiate has become one of the top West Coast college events," said Knowles Family Director of Golf  Conrad Ray. " The Stanford Golf Course stands up to par and the weather forecast looks good so we should have a fantastic competition.

"With the majority of the Pac-10 Conference in attendance the level of play will be very high," said Ray. "Our guys really look forward to playing well at home because there is a lot of local knowledge about playing Stanford well so I hope we can execute our plan properly. We are also excited about the Reno Tahoe Open exemption. It is a first for our event and a really neat thing for college golf in general."

Washington won last year's event with a 36-under team score of 804, 15 strokes ahead of second place USC (819). Nick Taylor of Washington took medalist honors with a 12-under score of 198 on rounds of 69, 66 and 63, edging out teammate Darren Wallace by one stroke.

Stanford placed fourth last year with an 11-under team score of 829. The Cardinal has won the event 12 times since the tournament's inception in 1968, most recently in 2007, edging out Minnesota in a tie breaker for the title. Rob Grube is the last Stanford player to win the individual title, as he captured medalist honors in 2006 and '07.

Stanford, ranked second in GolfStat's Top-25 poll, is coming off a fourth place finish at last weekend's ASU/Thunderbird Invitational in Tempe, where the Cardinal shot a 54-hole team score of 846, seven strokes behind tournament-winner Washington (839).

Stanford began its spring schedule with a win at the Mauna Lani Invitational and then placed eighth at the USC Collegiate Invitational.

The U.S. Intercollegiate will be the team's final tune up before the Pac-10 Conference Championships, scheduled for Apr. 26-28 at the Karsten Golf Course in Tempe.


Golf Digest Online (3/9/10 story) - Winners at a handful of amateur tournaments already earn exemptions into PGA Tour stops (Southern Am into the Arnold Palmer Invitational; Players Amateur into The Heritage, etc.). Now the medalist at (the) U.S. Intercollegiate at Stanford GC in Palo Alto, Calif., will get that same perk. Officials with the Reno-Tahoe Open announced they'll give the champion at Stanford GC in Palo Alto, Calif., a spot in their field this coming July, becoming the only PGA Tour event to do so.

“Not only is this an incredible opportunity for a top-level collegiate golfer to gain exposure and experience on the PGA TOUR, it’s also an avenue for the tournament to create buzz in key regional markets,” said Reno-Tahoe Open executive director  Jana Smoley in a release. “Because this is such a unique situation for a college athlete in that it offers such an exciting and potentially life changing reward, it also presents a great opportunity to bring visitors from sought-after West Coast markets in which these athletes attend school.”

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