The spring season of the collegiate golf schedule begins in earnest on Monday with the playing of the Southwestern Invitational presented by Topgolf at North Ranch Country Club in Westlake Village, Calif.
The 12-team field includes six squads ranked in the top-20 by Golfweek/Sagarin, including No. 2 and host Pepperdine, No. 3 Arizona State, No. 7 Texas, No. 10 Wake Forest, No. 16 Georgia and No. 20 Washington.
SMU, defending champions San Diego State, UCLA, San Jose State, USC and UNLV round out one of the strongest fields of the spring. The 54-hole stroke-play event begins at 7:46 a.m. each day and live scoring will be available on
Golfstat.
Joe Highsmith (Pepperdine Athletics) Eight of the top-50 players in the nation as listed by Golfweek/Sagarin are in the field, including
Joe Highsmith (2) of Pepperdine,
R.J. Manke (5) of Washington,
Cameron Sisk (10) of Arizona State,
Joey Vrzich (20) of Pepperdine,
Preston Summerhays (28) of Arizona State,
Derek Hitchner (34) of Pepperdine,
Pierceson Coody (48) of Texas and teammate
Travis Vick (49).
Television Coverage
As part of its continuing commitment to collegiate golf, GOLF Channel will provide three-day coverage from North Ranch beginning with College Central from 1-1:30 PT, followed by live coverage from 1:30-4:30 p.m. PT. Bob Papa (play-by-play), John Cook (analyst), Steve Burkowski (tower) along with Billy Ray Brown (on-course) and Emilia Migliaccio (on-course) will call the action.
The Southwestern Invitational kicks off GOLF Channel’s 2022 spring college golf tournament schedule, which also includes the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate hosted by South Carolina (Feb. 28-March 2), the Western Intercollegiate hosted by San Jose State (April 11-13) along with the NCAA Women's (May 23-25) and Men's (May 30-June 1) from Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. The Darius Rucker Intercollegiate marks the first all-women's regular-season collegiate golf tournament to be presented live on the network.
Southwestern Invitational History
First played in 1978 as the Southwestern Intercollegiate, the event was established by C.W. Johnson, who served as tournament director for more than 25 years. Pepperdine fully assumed the role of tournament host in 2016.
Past individual champions of the event include Corey Pavin (1978, ’81) and Patrick Cantlay (2011) of UCLA, Dan Forsman (1980), Billy Mayfair (1987) and Paul Casey (1998) of Arizona State, Tiger Woods (1996) and Maverick McNealy (2014) of Stanford, Jason Gore (1997) and Sahith Theegala (2017, ‘20) of Pepperdine, Oklahoma's Anthony Kim (2006) and Justin Suh (2019) of USC.
Arizona State has won the event a record eight times while Pepperdine has three victories (2006, 2017, 2020). Last year, San Diego State (874) rallied to beat Arizona State by three shots while Arizona State's David Puig ran away with medalist honors at 10-under 206, which was good for a nine-stroke victory.
About North Ranch Country Club
Located in Westlake Village, Calif., North Ranch Country Club will play to a par of 72 and at 6,992 yards for this event.
ABOUT THE
Southwestern Invitational
54-hole men's college tournament with team (best
four
scores of five players) and individual competitions.
The
Southwestern Invitational is the combination of two
previously existing
tournaments: the Southwestern Intercollegiate
(started by USC in 1978) and the Jones Invitational
(hosted by Pepperdine since
2014).
View Complete Tournament Information