Feb. 1, 2016
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The San José State University men's golf team opens its spring season on Thursday, February 4th, at the Amer Ari Intercollegiate tournament on the Big Island of Hawai'i.
"There's 3,500 college golf tournaments in all and this is the number one tournament in all of college golf. We get to see some great friends in Hawai'I and it's a wonderful opportunity to start the spring. We are very excited to be going," said Spartans head coach John Kennaday.
The 25th annual edition of the Amer Ari Invitational features 19 schools at the par-72, 7,074-yard Kings' Course on the Waikoloa Beach Resort, including six schools ranked in the top-25 according to golfstat.com: #1 Auburn, #5 Stanford, #7 Southern California, #10 Arizona State, #17 Oklahoma State and #23 UCLA.
The rest of the field includes: UC Davis, CSU - Monterey Bay, Colorado, Georgia Tech, Hawaii, Oregon, Oregon State, Osaka Gakuin University, Pacific, San José State, TCU, Texas Tech and tournament host, Hawaii - Hilo.
The 54-hole tournament will be played over three days, from February 4th to 6th, with 18 holes each day. The teams will have a shotgun start at 7:30 a.m. (HST) each day as the Spartans will be putting out a lineup of: Taylor Bromley, Matthew Murray, Brett Thawley, Kevin Velo and Scott Munger. Bradley Keyer will be playing as an individual in his Spartan debut.
Six of Golfstat's top-25 players in the country including the top-two ranked players, Michael Johnson of Auburn and Maverick McNealy of Stanford lead the field along with #7 Jon Rahm (Arizona State), #8 Will Long (Auburn), #17 Rico Hoey (USC) and #19 Aaron Wise (Oregon).
Fans can follow the Amer Ari Invitational action with live scoring updates provided by Golfstat.com
WINTER BREAK FOCUS:
The Spartans last competed on November 2-4 at The Gifford Collegiate in Carlsbad, Calif., finishing 15th. Sophomore Brett Thawley had his best finish as a Spartan finishing tied for 51st at 12-over 225.
During the three month break since The Gifford Collegiate tournament, Kennaday focused on improving the team's short game and wedge work.
"The primary, overwhelming team need was for short game and wedge work. We hit the ball statistically with just about everybody out there, as good as anybody, but we need to focus on getting the ball in the hole regardless of how good we hit the ball."
PREVIOUSLY AT THE AMER ARI INVITATIONAL:
This will be the sixth consecutive year the Spartans will be playing in the Amer Ari Invitational, where the previous best finish was a 13th place finish during the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons.
Last year's tournament featured nine of the top-25 teams in the nation as San José State finished 11-over 875, good for 15th place.
From this year's starting lineup, sophomore Brett Thawley and senior Taylor Bromley have experience playing at the tournament where Thawley shot 16-over 232 last year and Bromley shot 17-over 233 in 2013, both playing as an individual.
SOCIAL MEDIA:
Keep up with your San José State men's golf team this season on social media!
The team is active on Facebook.