STATESBORO, Ga. - With travel from as far away as Scotland to as nearby as the bordering states of South Carolina and Florida, the Georgia Southern Golf team finally returns home to play host to the 2010 Mizuno Savannah Intercollegiate October 11-12. Georgia Southern, winners of the tournament two out of the last three years, welcomes a 14-team field that will compete at the Savannah Quarters Country Club.
"Obviously it's exciting anytime you can play close to home," said Head Coach Larry Mays. "We get to play at a golf course that's close to home and we'll have fans out here watching us play on a course that we play a little more regularly than just getting a practice round in. It's good for the guys and hopefully it's good for our momentum."
Teams challenging in this year's field will be: Arkansas State, Armstrong State, Charleston Southern, Davidson, Elon, Florida Gulf Coast, Gardner-Webb, Georgia College & State University, Georgia Southern, Jacksonville, Troy, Winthrop, Wofford and USC Upstate.
The teams will play 36 holes on Monday and conclude with a final round on Tuesday. The first round on Monday will begin at 8:30 a.m. with a shotgun start, followed by continuous play in the second round. The tournament will resume Tuesday morning with the final round beginning at 8 a.m. with a split tee start at holes #1 and #10. For the third year, the 2010 Mizuno Savannah Intercollegiate will be played at Savannah Quarters Country Club, a par-72, 7,016 Greg Norman-designed course.
Making the short trip for the Eagles will be Matt Deal (Statesboro,Ga.), Logan Blondell (Lakeland, Fla.), Lewis Gruber (Tallahassee, Fla.), Florian Sander (Bregenz, Austria) and Jake Ware (Statesboro, Ga.).
Competing as individuals for the Eagles will be Thomas Sharkey (Helensburgh, Scotland), Hayden Anderson (Knoxville, Tenn.), Drew Guffey (Bartow, Fla.) and Will Evans (McDonough, Ga.)
Last year, Georgia Southern was led to a fifth-place finish by then-senior Ryan Zabroske, who fired a 5-under on the last eight holes of the final round to card a 69, to finish in a tie for second. Sander posted a 219 to finish 19th and Deal finished in a tie for 68th.
"Ryan Zabroske played well," recalled Mays. "We played a bad first round and then played well coming in, but we were too far back after the first round last year. This first round is an important round for us to get a good start into the tournament. We preach to them about having the killer instinct and not giving anything up."
Georgia Southern returns home after finishing ninth in the Gary Koch Intercollegiate last weekend. The Eagles have been working on their physical and mental game this week in preparation for the Mizuno Savannah Intercollegiate.
"We have just been working hard," stated Mays. "We've tried to get the team re-focused and told them to prepare themselves with a little sense of urgency. We just can't coast into tournaments. Last tournament we had a terrible first round and played pretty good after that. Every shot counts, every round counts and you have to walk into each and every round with a sense of urgency. That's what we've been missing a little bit. We've really pushed them to practice smarter, gave them some drills to work on and had good practices.
Familiarity with the golf course has helped the Eagles win the tournament two out of the three years. The solid finishes in the past and the tournament being in Georgia Southern's "backyard" have the Eagles poised to post another solid finish at this year's Mizuno Savannah Intercollegiate.
"This is our somewhat home turf," said Mays. "We want to win at home just like any other sport. You want to protect your home turf so winning the tournament is obviously our goal for the week. We want to put in three solid rounds and hopefully that will be good enough at the end of the week to win."
Complete results from each round of the tournament will be posted on the 2010 Mizuno Savannah Intercollegiate tournament page at www.GeorgiaSouthernEagles.com. Fans can also receive tournament updates at twitter.com/GSScores and facebook.com/GSAthletics. For more information on the tournament, click here to access the tournament page.
