SEASIDE, Calif. – The FGCU men's golf team will begin its 2014-15 season Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 15 and 16, on the West Coast as the Eagles tee it up in the Saint Mary's Invitational at Bayonet & Black Horse Golf Courses.
 
Presented by Alsco-Geyer, the 16-team, 92-player tournament features a 54-hole format with the low four scores from each team's designated five-player lineup counting toward the team total each round. Following practice rounds on both Saturday and Sunday, action kicks off with 36 holes on Monday, followed by a final round of 18 holes on Tuesday.
 
The first 18 holes Monday will be contested on the Bayonet Course, while the final 18 holes for the day will be played at Black Horse. The teams will then return to Bayonet for the final round Tuesday. Each day of competition will begin with an 8 a.m. local (11 a.m. Eastern) shotgun start, with live scoring available via Birdiefire by following the link accompanying this release.
 
The field includes six of the top-100 teams in the nation (based off the most recent Golfstat rankings from the conclusion of the 2013-14 season), with no school ranked worse than No. 185. Five different conferences are represented: the Big 12, Big West, Mountain West, West Coast and Atlantic Sun, with FGCU the only school hailing from east of the Mississippi River.
 
In addition to FGCU and the host Gaels, the field includes Boise State, Cal Poly, CSU Fullerton, CSU Northridge, Fresno State, Kansas State, Long Beach State, Loyola Marymount, Pacific, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Clara, UC Davis and UC Riverside.
 
Half of the field participated in season-opening tournaments last week, with CSU Fullerton, CSU Northridge, Loyola Marymount, San Diego and UC Davis playing in the Southwest Intercollegiate. Boise State, San Francisco and Fresno State also began their respective seasons last week against some of the country's stiffest competition.
 
This will be the fifth straight year FGCU has competed in the Saint Mary's Invitational as recently-resigned head coach Brent Jensen is a 2004 alumnus of the Bay Area college. The Eagles went through qualifying a few weeks ago, and while a new coach is expected to be announced following the team's return to campus, FGCU will utilize the following lineup for the first of nine tournaments in 2014-15:
 
Sr. Blake Biggs (Peoria, Ill./Eastern Florida State College/Peoria Notre Dame HS)
Jr. Jake Sherwin (Fort Myers, Fla./Evangelical Christian HS)
So. Conrad Hahne (Ramsey, Minn./South Fort Myers HS)
So. Casper Howells (London, England/Bradfield College)
So. Jordan Miller (Bradenton, Fla./Bradenton Christian School)
 
Last year at the Saint Mary's Intercollegiate, FGCU was tied for 6th out of 19 teams following day-one action, but finished the tournament tied for 8th – its best showing in the four years the Eagles have competed in the invite.
 
Ranked No. 1 throughout much of last season, the University of California claimed the 2013 team title with a near-record 10-under 854 total, while San Diego's Grant Forrest garnered medalist honors with a 7-under 209 total. Saint Mary's (-4/860) won the championship in 2012, while San Francisco (+3/855 in 2008) is the only other participant in this year's field which has previously won the Saint Mary's Invitational. The invite is entering its ninth year overall and fifth at the Bayonet & Black Horse Courses after four years at Poppy Hills Golf Course.
 
Both courses are steeped in tradition and have played host to some of the PGA Tour's greats, including Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson. Designed in 1954, the par-72 Bayonet course is 7,104 yards with oak and cypress-lined fairways, a slope of 141 and a rating of 74.8.
 
Designed 10 years later in 1964, the Black Horse is also a par-72 layout which recently underwent renovations to transform it into a longer, more challenging course. With rolling fairways and panoramic views of the Monterey Bay, Black Horse now measures 7,024 yards, with a slope of 141 and a rating of 73.7.
 
FGCU is coming off a 2013-14 season in which it won two championships and finished in the top 5 on four different occasions. The two triumphs – which came at the Cobra-PUMA Invitational in October and the Harmony Preserve in March – marked the third time in four years that FGCU won multiple tournaments.
 
The Eagles welcome three newcomers and return seven letterwinners from last year's roster, led by Sherwin who paced FGCU with a 74.93 stroke average in 2013-14. Also returning are lone seniors Biggs and Jack Hernandez (Fort Myers, Fla./Bishop Verot HS). Biggs posted a stroke average of 75.13 last year, and his .667 percentage on sand saves led the nation.
 
With a talented roster, the Eagles peaked at No. 88 in the national rankings at the end of last fall's schedule. Sherwin, Matt Cote (eligibility exhausted following 2013-14) and Hernandez all had 85 or more birdies, representing just the second time in program history that three team members have posted 85+ birdies in the same season. In total, FGCU converted 442 birdies – the third-most in single-season program history – and added 11 eagles – also the third-most in single-season program history.
 
Following the trip out West, the Eagles will flock to the Midwest and partake in the Fighting Irish Gridiron Golf Classic for three rounds Sept. 28-30. The tournament will be held at two different courses: Warren Golf Course (Notre Dame's home course) in South Bend, Ind., and Lost Dunes Golf Club in Bridgman, Mich.
 
COMPLETE FIELD (Standings Based Off Final 2013-14 Golfstat Rankings)
#64 UC Davis
#66 CSU Fullerton
#71 San Diego
#84 Saint Mary's
#87 San Francisco
#96 Santa Clara
#114 Cal Poly
#115 Loyola Marymount
#119 FGCU
#120 Long Beach State
#127 Kansas State
#151 Pacific
#165 Fresno State
#167 UC Riverside