Dec. 20, 2012

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina women’s golf coach Kalen Harris announced the field for the 2013 Darius Rucker Intercollegiate on Thursday.

The tournament, which will be held March 8-10 at Long Cove Club in Hilton Head Island, S.C., will have one of the strongest fields in collegiate golf for the second straight year, as 11 of the 15 teams are ranked in the Golfstat Top 50 and seven are ranked in the Golf World/WGCA Top 25. Defending national champion No. 7 Alabama, No. 13 Arkansas, No. 30 Auburn, No. 15 Georgia, No. 44 LSU, No. 33 Tennessee and No. 12 Vanderbilt make up a strong SEC contingent, while No. 9 North Carolina, No. 18 Virginia and Wake Forest will represent the ACC. Tenth-ranked Arizona State, No. 50 Central Florida, Furman and TCU round out the field.

“We are excited to be hosting the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate again this year,” Harris said. “We have another very impressive field. It’s going to be stacked with some very competitive teams. Our response from last year was amazing. Teams from all over the country wanted to get in. Obviously, Darius Rucker was a huge draw to that and so was Long Cove Club. They did a phenomenal job hosting the event, and we are really excited to be doing it again. Hopefully, we can get some Gamecock fans to come out and support us in March.”

The Gamecocks have agreed to host the event along with singer/songwriter Darius Rucker and Long Cove Club through 2016. Last year’s inaugural event made a splash on the collegiate scene as it drew a 15-team field with 12 teams ranked in the top 50 nationally. Alabama won the rain-shortened tournament with a two-round total of 571 (+3), while South Carolina finished eighth.

The 54-hole tournament is contested on the par-71, 6,160-yard course at Long Cove. Pete Dye, who is one of the most well-known course architects in the world, designed Long Cove, which has been a regular selection on Golf Digest’s list of the top 100 courses.