UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State men's golf team returns to the state of Florida for the Florida Gators Invitational Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 15-16 at the Mark Bostick Golf Course on the University of Florida Campus. The Nittany Lions will be on the course for practice rounds Friday, Feb. 14.
"Our intent is to spend the better part of our practice day working around and on the greens," said Penn State men's golf coach Greg Nye. "There are several areas we have scouted that we would like to play the ball to, as the short side misses here are punishing. The greens may be the fastest green we play all year so pace control and high lines will be a big part of our success."
Penn State's five-man team is comprised of seniors Alec Bard (New Hartford, N.Y.) and Ryan Davis (Berkeley Heights, N.J.) and juniors Lukas Clark (Holland, Pa.), James McHugh (Rye, N.Y.) and Lou Olsakovsky (Upper St. Clair, Pa.). All five competed as Penn State advanced to the championship of Big Ten Match Play last weekend.
The Nittany Lions will face a 14 other teams in the field including host Florida and Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Jacksonville, Liberty, Mississippi State, Missouri, UCF, UNF, USF, Toledo, Vanderbilt, West Virginia and Wichita State.
Play begins Saturday with an 8 a.m. ET shotgun start and continuous play through round two in the afternoon on the 6,701-yard layout of the par-70 Mark Bostick Golf Course. Sunday's third and final round gets underway on the No. 1 and No. 10 holes with parings determined after play on Saturday.
While this is Penn State's first time participating in the Gator Invitational, but the two programs share a connection in former Nittany Lion All-American and assistant coach Mark Leon who now serves as an assistant coach at Florida. Leon earned the highest individual finish in Penn State's NCAA history at sixth when the 2004 team placed 15th in the NCAA Championship field that year.
Live scoring for the Florida Gators Invitational is available on GolfStat and pairings will be available on the Golfstat.com site Friday evening. A recap of each day's competition and results will be available on GoPSUsports.com.
Keep up to date with the latest information about the Nittany Lion Men's Golf team on Twitter at @PennStateMGolf and Facebook. Follow Coach Greg Nye on Instagram at @CoachNyePSU.
