NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Fresh off a win at the John Hayt Invitational, Vanderbilt will be back in action starting Sunday at the three-day, 54-hole Watersound Invitational.
The Commodores will look to conquer the Shark’s Tooth Golf Club in Panama City Beach, Florida, in an event hosted by Florida State.
“The spring season has arrived and it already seems to be going fast,” Vanderbilt head coach Scott Limbaugh said. “We try to help the guys understand how important it is to be ready when your number is called and not allow opportunities to pass you by. Sometimes that is hard for young people to grasp and it takes a lot of maturity to be able to show up consistently every day with a great work ethic while also being a great teammate and being coachable.
“However, those are the characteristics we want in our student-athletes because that’s the Vandy Golf way. We have a lot of guys doing those things which is a lot of fun, but we need everyone doing those things if we want to be the best team we can be.”
Vandy, the unanimously-ranked No. 1 team in college golf and featuring the World Amateur Golf Ranking’s No. 1 player in Gordon Sargent, captured The Hayt title Feb. 5-6 thanks to a 28-under-, 16-stroke victory over North Florida. That gave the program its ninth team title since February of 2022.
This week’s event will include the Commodores, Air Force, Alabama, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Mississippi State, North Carolina State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech and host FSU. Sargent, Matthew Riedel, Cole Sherwood, Jackson Van Paris and Wells Williams will be wearing the black and gold on the 7,246-yard, par 72 course.
Reid Davenport will be competing as an individual.
“We got off to a good start in our first event and this is now another great opportunity to show the type of team we are becoming,” Limbaugh said. “Sometimes it’s easy to let your guard down and think you have it figured out when you have success, but that’s not what great teams full of great competitors do.
“Our goal is to have a sense of urgency this week and compete to our standards and regardless of where we may be physically, it’s about locking in mentally and doing the little things better. We train a certain way so we can have freedom, focus and fun while playing the game we love.”
Vanderbilt is scheduled to tee off at 10 a.m. Sunday alongside Oklahoma State and Georgia Tech. Live scoring for the event can be found HERE.
“It’s fun for us to play another new event on another new course and we are grateful to Florida State and the Watersound Club for hosting such a great event,” Limbaugh added.
Dores, Sargent ranked No. 1
Vanderbilt and Sargent both begin this week’s tournament ranked No. 1.
The Commodores are unanimously the top team in college golf. Golfweek, Golfstat and the Golf Coaches Association of America Coaches’ Poll all consider the team the top squad in America.
On Wednesday, Sargent became the No. 1 played in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. After winning the John Hayt Invitational, his fourth individual victory of his career, Sargent improved two pots and earned two more points in PGA TOUR University Accelerated bringing his total to 12.
If Sargent, a sophomore, reaches 20 points by spring of 2024 he will earn PGA TOUR membership.
As the No. 1 player in WAGR, Sargent earns five points in PGA TOUR University Accelerated. His record also includes representing the United States at the 2022 Palmer Cup (one point) and 2022 World Amateur Team Championship (one point), as well as winning the 2022 D-I NCAA individual championship (three points) and being named the 2022 D-I Outstanding Freshman (two points).
Stanford junior Michael Thorbjornsen has 13 Accelerated points and held steady at No. 2 in WAGR, while Texas Tech senior Ludvig Aberg is No. 3 in WAGR and remained No. 1 in this week’s PGA TOUR University Velocity Global Ranking.
