Feb. 14, 2018
AUBURN, Ala. ÃÆ'Æ'¢ÃƒÆ'¢'¬" No. 8 Auburn Men's Golf, coming off a top five finish at the Amer Ari Invitational, tees off at the All-American Intercollegiate Friday through Sunday at the par 72, 7,096-yard Tournament Course at the Golf Club of Houston in Humble, Texas.
The Tigers are one of 18 teams that will play the course this weekend including No. 13 Wake Forest and fellow SEC schools South Carolina and Mississippi State. Houston, Rice, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Georgia State, Lamar, McNeese State, North Texas, Sam Houston State, SMU, South Alabama, UTSA and Southeastern Louisiana round out the field.
"We are excited to get back to Texas and compete at an outstanding venue, the Golf Club of Houston," Auburn head coach Nick Clinard said. "Our guys are playing well at home, so we're looking forward to watching them compete. The course will be in fantastic shape and our guys are ready to play."
Senior Ben Schlottman, juniors Ryan Knop and Trace Crowe, sophomore Jovan Rebula, and freshmen Brandon Mancheno and Wells Padgett will play the course for the Tigers this weekend.
Rebula, ranked as the No. 28 individual in collegiate golf, is second on the team at 70.73 strokes per round. The George, South Africa product, has finished in the top-20 in four out of five tournaments played this season, including a tie for 11th at the Tavistock Collegiate Invitational. He has carded a team-best ten rounds at or under par and has counted all 15 rounds played.
Mancheno, coming off a t-9 finish at the Amer Ari Invitational, leads the team at 70.53 strokes. The Jacksonville, Fla. product is off to an outstanding start in his collegiate career, finishing in the top-10 in 4-of-5 tournaments played. Padgett, a native of Wichita, Kan., is averaging 71.13 strokes. He has one top-10 finish this season, a t-9 at the Tavistock Collegiate Invitational.
Knop, a product of Pleasanton, Calif., coming off two winter wins, will make his 2018 spring debut for the Tigers. He finished runner-up at the F&M Bank APSU Intercollegiate in the fall.
Junior Trace Crowe (72.00), has a pair of top-20 finishes, a t-3 finish at the Carpet Capital Collegiate and t-18 at the Jerry Pate National. The product of Bluffton, S.C., has counted 10-of-15 rounds played this season. Schlottman (73.00) made his season debut at the Amer Ari Invitational where he tied for 64th while carding two sub-par rounds.
The Tigers will tee-off No. 1 with Houston and Mississippi State at 8:30 a.m. CT.
Live scoring will be available at Golfstat.com.