No. 20 South Carolina Ready for Hootie at Bulls Bay on Sunday

AWENDAW, S.C. – No. 20 South Carolina opens play at the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate with first round action beginning on Sunday. The Gamecocks, who entered the Golfstat Top-25 for the first time in the 2018-19 season this week, have rounded into form with two of their best performances the past couple of weeks.
 
“We always enjoy the Hootie and the guys are excited to be back in Charleston for one of the most unique events in college golf,” said head coach Bill McDonald. “The combination of Bulls Bay Golf Club and the Hootie and the Blowfish concert makes for an enjoyable weekend for everyone involved with this first-class event. We’re coming into the tournament playing pretty well, and I know the guys are looking to continue their high-level of play against a very strong field.”
 
Carolina will boast the same lineup of seniors Will Miles, Ryan Stachler, Scott Stevens and juniors Caleb Proveaux and Jamie Wilson. The group has boded well for the Gamecocks recently with a record-setting, 35-shot win at the Cleveland Golf Palmetto Intercollegiate (March 11-12) and a third-place finish in a loaded field at the Valspar Collegiate Invitational (March 17-19) that featured six teams ranked in the top-10 of Golfstat.
 
Miles, Stachler and Stevens have finished in the top-15 in each of the team’s three spring tournaments so far. Stachler, Stevens and Wilson, were all in the lineup for the team’s last title at Bulls Bay in 2017.
 
Wilson had a career-best performance as a true freshman, finishing T-5th to propel the team to victory. He shot 69-72-72 (209, -7) to set a new 54-hole, career-low mark which earned him SEC Co-Freshman of the Week honors.
 
The Gamecocks will be paired with Ole Miss and Kent State for the opening round tomorrow morning. Wilson will lead things off at hole one at 10:45 a.m. ET. Miles will be the final Carolina player off the tee at 11:21 a.m. Live scoring will be available via BiridieFire.

ABOUT THE COURSE
Bulls Bay Golf Club sits among windswept savannahs and centuries old live oaks just minutes from downtown Charleston.
 
The par-72, Mike Strantz designed course plays 7,220 yards from the championship tees. Strantz transformed a once flat stretch of Lowcountry coastline into a landscape reminiscent of the great links courses of Scotland and Ireland. Roughly two million cubic yards of earth were moved to reshape the site. The course features 75-foot elevation changes and 360-degree views.  

TOURNAMENT HISTORY
The Gamecocks have played in the Hootie at Bulls Bay every year since the inaugural event in 2005. Carolina has seven top-five finishes winning three-straight titles from 2015-17. All-Americans Matt NeSmith (2015) and Keenan Huskey (2016) are the two Gamecocks who have earned medalist honors at the event.

TOURNAMENT FIELD
It’s a solid field of competition this week from top to bottom with eight of the 15 teams ranked in the top-40 of the latest Golfstat Team Rankings.
 
Here’s the full field and where the teams stack up in Golfstat:
 
College of Charleston (64)
Duke (4)
Iowa State (38)
Kansas (36)
Kent State (74)
Kentucky (67)
Middle Tennessee State (128)
Missouri (71)
North Carolina State (27)
Ole Miss (48)
Purdue (55)
South Carolina (20)
Virginia (58)
West Virginia (41)
Wisconsin (114)

MCDONALD’S 22
Gamecock head coach Bill McDonald is the winningest coach by tournament victories in school history with 22. McDonald broke the previous record of nine held by Puggy Blackmon (1995-2007) with Carolina’s win at the Carpet Capital Collegiate in September 2014. McDonald captured a school-record five wins in 2014-15
 
UP NEXT
The Gamecocks have a few weeks off before wrapping up the season at the Augusta Haskins Award Invitational (formerly the 3M Augusta Invitational) on April 6-7 just before the start of Masters week down I-20.
 
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