June 1, 2005

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The Golf Coaches’ Association of America announced several of its postseason awards and the South Carolina men’s golf team was well-represented. Mark Anderson (Beaufort, S.C.) is one of five freshmen from around the nation to make the organization’s All-Freshman team, and he earned PING All-Southeast Region honors. In addition, the trio of senior Alex Hamilton (Aiken, S.C.), junior Eirik Johansen (Stavanager, Norway) and senior West Streib (Atlanta, Ga.) were named Cleveland Golf All-America Scholars.

Anderson, the Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year, led South Carolina with a two tournament wins and four top-10 finishes in 2005. He tied for first at the Southern Highlands Collegiate Championship in Las Vegas, March 11-13, before falling in a playoff. The following week, he brought home medalist honors at the Schenkel E-Z-Go Invitational in Statesboro, Ga., after winning a playoff. Anderson, who also earned first-team All-SEC honors, finished the season with a 73.22 stroke average, the best of any Gamecock golfer. He was chosen the SEC Golfer of the Week on March 16 and March 23. Anderson is believed to be first South Carolina freshman ever to make the team.

“Mark Anderson has had an incredible year,” head coach Puggy Blackmon said. “Being one just five freshmen named to the team is a prestigious honor. He has developed a solid foundation to build on, and hopefully in the future he will contend for first-team All-America and National Player of the Year honors. He really showed a commitment after the fall and stepped up as a team leader. Mark has an outstanding future ahead of him if he continues to work hard.”

Joining Anderson on the All-Freshman team are Stanford’s Rob Grube, Oklahoma State’s Pablo Martin, Webb Simpson of Wake Forest and Dawie VanDerWalt of Lamar. The Gamecock freshman was one of 18 players on the All-Southeast Region team. Each region team is comprised of 15 players and any player that is ranked in the top 75 nationally in either Golfstat or the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings. Anderson is now eligible for selection to an All-America team, which will be announced at a later date.

For the second straight year, Hamilton made the All-America Scholar, while Johansen and Streib are earning the award for the first time. With three players on the All-American Scholar list in 2005, South Carolina tied for the most of any school in the nation with Georgia Tech. Along with Hamilton, Jake Thompson and Martin Rominger earned the award in 2004, giving Carolina the most of any school last year as well.

“I’m very proud that not only do we have a team that contends nationally and represents South Carolina in the national polls, but that we’ve also produced high quality student-athletes,” Blackmon said. “I commend our academic coach Mike Moody and his staff for their tremendous academic support program.”

To be eligible for Cleveland Golf All-America Scholar status an individual must be a junior or senior academically and have competed in at least two full years at the collegiate level, participate in 70 percent of his team’s competitive rounds, have a stroke average of under 76.0 in Division I and maintained a minimum cumulative grade point average of 3.2.

2005 PING All-Southeast Region Team
Mark Anderson, South Carolina
Jordan Dempsey, Ole Miss
David Denham, Georgia
Matt Every, Florida
Andreas Hoegberg, UCF
Chris Kirk, Georgia
Patton Kizzire, Auburn
Luke List, Vanderbilt
Ross McGowan, Tennessee
Stuart Moore, Auburn
David Skinns, Tennessee
Brett Stegmaier, Florida
Steve Tiley, Georgia St
Brendon Todd, Georgia
Richard Treis, Florida
James Vargas, Florida
Chris Wells, LSU
Lee Williams, Auburn