BRASELTON, Ga. – After beginning the season at the beginning of last week, the University of South Alabama men's golf program will waste little time getting back into action with the start of the Bridgestone Match Play on Monday.

"I think it's a good thing," head coach Alex Hamilton said of the short break between tournaments.  "I think our guys learned a lot throughout the week at Kiawah Island, the quick turnaround gives them the opportunity to put those lessons into play a lot faster.  At the same time, I wasn't very happy with how we finished as a team, so it would've been nice to have a little more time to prepare, but I think this turnaround should be good for the guys."

The event will combine both stroke- and match-play formats over two days, with the additional difference of including six individuals in each lineup rather than five.  Coming off an 11th place finish at The Invitational at The Ocean Course, the Jags' grouping will feature a trio of players — Peter Staalbo, Drew Cooke and Jason Mendel — who helped South qualifiy for the semifinals of the Sun Belt Conference Championship after 54 holes of stroke-play competition in the spring.

The other three Jaguars who will compete this week all made their NCAA Division I debut at last week's tournament: Sylas Elliott, Rasmus Karlsson and Yannick Schütz.

Staalbo paced South at last week's tournament, posting his sixth top-20 finish since the start of the spring campaign after tying for eighth with a 3-under-par 213 total.  After shooting a 71 in the second round he concluded play with a career-low 6-under-par 66, placing among the top 10 in the individual standings for the third time since joining the program.

Cooke broke par in each of the first two rounds last time out, carding scores of 71 and 70 on the opening day, while Elliott supplied a 69 in the final round that helped the junior-college transfer finish among the top 50 individually with a 221 score over 54 holes.  Schütz and Karlsson — both freshmen — had all three rounds count toward the Jaguars' score at Kiawah Island, with the former recording a 224 total after carding an even-par 72 the morning of the opening day of the event.  The latter finished with a 229 three-round score, three strokes behind Cooke in the final individual standings.

While Mendel did not see action last week, he played in 30 rounds last season as a redshirt sophomore.  He posted a 74.57 stroke average, with seven scores of par or lower highlighted by a 2-under-par 69 on the final day of the Sam Hall Intercollegiate.

"Match play is something we will see later in the year on our schedule and at the Sun Belt Conference Championship, so I'm glad we are gaining some experience in the format this early," Hamilton said.  "We haven't done anything different in practice to prepare for it, I felt like there were enough individual things that our guys needed to work on that with the short time for preparation there wasn't much we could do as far as match play.

"I'm far more concerned with their development as players than I am about the match-play format."

This week's tournament includes six teams — High Point, Jacksonville, Lispcomb, Presbyterian, USA and USC Upstate — competing on Monday and Tuesday at the par-72, 7,033-yard Legends Golf Course at Chateau Elan.  The opening day will feature 36 holes of strokes play beginning at 7:30 a.m. (CDT), with results after two rounds used to seed the teams for Tuesday's match play.  The first pairing will tee off at 6:30 a.m. on day two, and the winners of the semifinals will meet for the championship with match slated to get underway at approximately 12:30 p.m.

Live scoring for the event can be found at www.golftstat.com.

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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