Texas Tech University Athletics
Red Raider Golf Heading to Big 12 Championships
April 24, 2009 | Men's Golf
April 24, 2009
LUBBOCK, Texas - To improve on last year's program best third-place finish, the No. 15 Texas Tech men's golf squad, as well as the rest of the field, will have to face the formidable task of going through the nation's second-ranked team, Oklahoma State.
The Red Raiders, Cowboys and the Big 12's other 10 programs tee off at the Big 12 Conference Championships at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan. The 72-hole event begins with 36 holes Monday, followed by 18-hole days Tuesday and Wednesday. The teams will be reseeded following Monday's rounds.
Texas Tech enters the event as the No. 2 seed in the field, behind Oklahoma State. The two teams will be joined by No. 3-seed Texas in the 8 a.m. CT group off of the No. 1 tees.
Texas A&M, Baylor and Colorado are the No. 4 through No. 6 teams in the field, while Kansas State, Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa State, Kansas and Nebraska are the seven through 12 seeds, respectively.
The 2008 event, hosted by Texas Tech at Whispering Pines in Trinity, Texas, saw the Red Raiders battle back-and-forth with Texas and Oklahoma State, the Big 12 champions last season. Current players, senior Garrett Merrell and sophomore Chris Ward, finished third and fourth, individually, the highest of any Tech player since the Big 12 was formed in 1996.
Texas Tech has played steady throughout the season and has seen its national ranking soar as high as No. 7. The Red Raiders have not finished out of the top 10 of any tournament this season and have back-to-back wins in the spring, followed by a pair of sixth-place finishes. Tech shot a school-record 824 (-28) at the UTSA Invitational in February and bested the field by 20 strokes. Sophomore Chris Ward picked up medalist honors, his first as a Red Raiders, with a school-record 202 (-11).
Two weeks later, the Red Raiders won the Ron Smith/USF Intercollegiate in Dade City, Fla. The Red Raiders won the event in a playoff against Florida Southern, one of Division II's top golf programs. Senior Santiago Rivas earned his first career win, tying for medalist honors with a 9-under 207. Sophomore Nils Floren tied in fourth place, five strokes behind Rivas.
Currently ranked No. 15 by Golfweek magazine, the Red Raiders are the third-highest ranked team in the league, after spending the regular season as the second highest. Oklahoma State is No. 2 and Texas A&M checks in at No. 12 this week. Texas is No. 22, as the four teams are the only league schools ranked among the top 25.
Individually, Nils Floren, who was ranked as high as No. 17 at one point this spring, is No. 55 and leads the Red Raiders in the rankings.
Complete coverage of Texas Tech in the Big 12 Championships can be found at www.texastech.com at the conclusion of each round, while live scoring throughout the event can be followed at www.golfstat.com.
