Five different golfers will have a bit of a leg up in this week’s Barbasol Championship.
Four former and one current Auburn men’s golfers will participate in the PGA Tour event at Grand National in Opelika. The tournament will begin on Thursday and conclude on Sunday.
Recent graduate Matt Gilchrest and current junior Trace Crowe will join former All-Americans Blayne Barber and Dominic Bozzelli and 2007 SEC Champion Patton Kizzire in a crowded field of 128 that will play the par-71, 7,302-yard Lakes Course.
Gilchrest, a two-time All-SEC selection and 2017 Byron Nelson Award finalist, will be making his second-straight appearance at the Barbasol Championship after missing the cut at 1-under 141 last year. The Southlake, Texas, native has played five tournaments on the Mackenzie Tour this summer including a career-best t-8th finish at the Freedom 55 Financial Open.
Crowe, a native of Bluffton, S.C., will be making his PGA Tour debut after leading the Tigers with a 71.82 stroke average last season. The 2017 All-SEC second-team selection had four top-15 finishes including the second win of his career at the Gary Koch Invitational as a sophomore.
Barber, a member of the 2011 and 2012 Arnold Palmer Cup USA teams at Auburn, will make his 21st appearance on the PGA Tour this season. He had a career-best runner-up finish at the RSM Classic in November and tied for 16th at the PLAYERS Championship in May.
Bozzelli and Kizzire are fresh off a tie for 25th-place finish at the John Deere Classic. Bozzelli, a 2013 graduate, has played in 22 PGA Tour events this year, making the cut 10 times with four top-25 finishes. The Rochester, N.Y., native tied for third at the Valspar Championship, finished fifth at the CareerBuilder Challenge and most recently tied for 10th at the FedEx St. Jude Classic in June.
Kizzire is currently ranked 90th in the FedEx Cup rankings and has made the cut in 11 of 23 events played this season on the PGA Tour. The two-time All-SEC selection finished second at the Safeway Open and t-5th at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
Last year at the Barbasol Championship, former Auburn All-American Michael Johnson, making his professional debut, finished third with a score of 17-under.
Bozzelli and Barber will tee off early Thursday morning, at 8:26 a.m. and 8:37 a.m., respectively. Kizzire and Gilchrest will tee off at 1:26 p.m. and 1:37 p.m., respectively. Crowe will round out the Auburn connections with a 1:59 p.m. tee time.
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