The Long Beach State men’s golf team is set to host the 14th Annual Del Walker Intercollegiate Golf Classic presented by Flexor, at the par 70, 6,633 yard Virginia Country Club in Long Beach. First and second rounds will be played on Thursday, Oct 22, with final round action concluding on Friday, Oct. 23. Both days will begin at 7:30 a.m. Live action can be followed on golfstat.com. Admission is free for both days of the tournament.

Teams will participate in a practice round on Wednesday, Oct. 21 before continuing on to competition on Thursday. The tournament will feature a 16-team field competing in a “six count five” format, in which each team will field six players with the five-best 18-hole scores from each round counting towards the team total.

A total of 16 teams will be participating in this year’s tournament: Arizona, Cal Poly, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Northridge, Colorado State, Idaho, Long Beach State, Loyola Marymount, Oregon, Pacific, Saint Mary’s Santa Clara, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara and Wyoming.

Last year, Colorado State swept both team and individual titles as the Rams won the team championship for the second year in a row with a record of 41-under 811. The previous record was an 831 that was set by Lamar in 2005. Rams’ sophomore Zahkai Brown will be looking to defend the individual title after recording a tournament record of 17-under 196 last year. The previous mark was 204 that was set in 2007 by Robert Galletti of Arizona and Dawie VanDer Walt of Lamar in 2005.

The 49ers will be looking to improve from their third place performance from last year as LBSU carded a 10-under 842. Senior Steve Gibson finished in sixth for the 49ers as he carded a four-under 209, followed by junior Ricky Montanez tied for ninth with a five-under 208 and senior Michael Drake tied for 21st. Last year’s finish was the best performance since 2004, when The Beach tied for third with UC Irvine. The 49ers tied with San Diego back in 2000 for the Del Walker championship with future PGA golfer John Mallinger shooting a five-over 218 as he tied for 10th.

“I am very pleased with the field for this year,” said 49er Head Coach Bill Poutre. “According to the Golfweek rankings, the strength of the field is slightly stronger than last year and the new format, also used by the Pac-10 in their championship, will reward the deepest and most talented teams. Our team will be competing on our home course and we expect to be in the hunt to win this event.”

The Del Walker Intercollegiate is named after former head coach Del Walker, who retired in 1993 after 12 seasons. The event is held annually at Virginia Country Club where Walker was a member of 67 years.

Report by LBSU