March 8, 2012
ATLANTA – Hoping to improve upon a pair of fourth-place finishes this spring, Georgia Tech’s 8th-ranked golf team travels to Tallahassee, Fla., this weekend for its first-ever appearance in the Seminole Intercollegiate golf tournament at Southwood Country Club.
Head coach Bruce Heppler elected not to send his Yellow Jackets to Las Vegas this week, which had been the traditional third leg of Tech’s early spring schedule for the last eight years, but instead stay closer to home and play in an event where the field is mostly Southern, with a few Atlantic Coast Conference foes included.
The 54-hole event will be played Friday, Saturday and Sunday over the 7,190-yard, par 71 Southwood layout, and the field includes 19th-ranked and host Florida State, North Carolina, Michigan State, Georgia State, South Florida, Troy, James Madison, Arkansas State, Florida Atlantic, Boston College, Charlotte, Kennesaw State, Mississippi State, Cincinnati, Toledo and Jacksonville.
“We’re looking forward to playing at Florida State this weekend. We have had a couple of good weeks of practicing and a competitive qualifying,” said Heppler. “We normally head to Las Vegas this weekend, but decided to do something different. Due to the fact that there was not a NCAA preview this fall, we decided to change our trip out west from Las Vegas to Southern California. Over spring break we will have a chance to play Riviera a couple of times and also play a tournament in San Diego to learn more about playing golf out west. We need to begin to play our best golf of the year as the end of the year approaches.”
All-American James White heads the Tech travel contingent for this event, which also includes freshman Anders Albertson and sophomores Seth Reeves, Richard Werenski and Bo Andrews.
White, a senior from Acworth, Ga., has strung together three consecutive top-10 finishes, beginning with the Western Refining All-American Classic to finish the fall, and continuing with the Amer Ari Invitational and the Puerto Rico Classic this spring. He leads Tech in stroke average at 71.1 and is ranked 15th in the nation.
Albertson, a Woodstock, Ga., native ranked 40th in the nation, has a 71.8 average and a pair of top-10 finishes this year. He won the team’s qualifying tournament for this event. Werenski (South Hadley, Mass.), Andrews (Raleigh, N.C.) and Reeves (Duluth, Ga.) are third, fourth and fifth, respectively, on the team in stroke average and have five top-10 finishes between them.
Ollie Schniederjans, a freshman from Powder Springs, Ga., will travel and play as an individual.
