In the final tournament before the Big 12 Championship, the No. 20 Texas A&M men’s golf team will host the Aggie Invitational at Traditions Golf Club for the third time in five years.
“Playing at home is an always awesome,” said A&M Head Coach J.T. Higgins. “Hopefully a bunch of people will come out to watch us play. We are really starting to play pretty good golf and we want to win at home.”
Traveling to Bryan, Texas for the tournament will be a field of 12 teams, four of which rank amongst the top 25 nationally. The Aggies will get a preview of their competition headed to the Big 12 Championship as Baylor, Kansas, No. 2 Oklahoma State, and No. 12 Texas Tech will play in the tournament.
“We have seen most of these top teams several times already,” Higgins said. “Oklahoma State is probably the best team in the country and we are looking forward to the challenge of playing them on our home course.”
Traditions Golf Club opened in 2004 and the Aggies hosted the Invitational in 2005 and 2006, but took a two year break from the tournament in 2007 and 2008. The Aggies finished 2nd place behind Oklahoma State in 2006 and will be seeking their first title at their home tournament.
The Aggies will be lead by senior Bronson Burgoon who leads the team with a scoring average of 72.65 per round. In the four tournaments Burgoon has competed in this spring, he has finished with two top 10 performances including a second place finish at the Callaway Match Play Qualifier.
Another Aggie to watch for will be freshman Geoff Shaw, who will be playing in his fourth tournament of his young Aggie career. Shaw is coming off of a career best performance where he finished in 7th place at the US Collegiate Championship. The finish was his first top 10 performance and an impressive one as the field of competition included 14 of the nation’s top 25 teams.
Also competing for the Aggies will be junior Andrea Pavan, sophomore Nacho Elvira, and senior Matt Van Zandt.
After the Aggie Invitational, Texas A&M will head to Hutchinson, Kansas for the Big 12 Championship which begins on April 27. As usual the Big 12 conference is very competitive with four teams ranked in the top 25, three of which are in the top 15. In 2008, the Aggies finished in fourth place behind winner Oklahoma State who has won the tournament the previous two years.
“Everyone is playing really great and this should be a good week for us,” said Burgoon. “Anytime you play at your own course you want to win. If we go out and just play golf that should take care of that.”