No. 13 Cavaliers Open Spring at John Burns Intercollegiate

Story Links

Feb. 17, 2015

Charlottesville, Va. – The 13th-ranked Virginia men’s golf team tees off the spring portion of its schedule this week in Hawaii at the 39th annual John Burns Intercollegiate. The 16-team field will compete at the Wailua Golf Course in Lihu’e, Kaua’i. The tournament runs Wednesday, Feb. 18 through Friday, Feb. 20.

Four-time defending champion California will take on a field that also includes Virginia, UNLV, New Mexico, Arizona, Brigham Young, BYU-Hawai’i, Colorado State, Fresno State, UH-Hilo, Long Beach State, Santa Clara, Texas A&M, UTEP, and Washington State.

The Cavaliers’ lineup will include senior Denny McCarthy (Rockville, Md.), senior Ji Soo Park (Clifton, Va.), sophomore Derek Bard (New Hartford, N.Y.), sophomore Jimmy Stanger (Tampa, Fla.) and freshman Danny Walker (Bradenton, Fla.). McCarthy enters the event ranked No. 19 in the latest Golfweek standings while Bard is No. 28 and Park is No. 87.

McCarthy leads the team with a 70.27 stroke average and has two top-10 finishes in four outings this season. Bard is second on the team at 70.64 and is coming off his first collegiate victory, taking medalist honors at the U.S. Collegiate in October.

Wailua is a municipal course, which played host to three USGA National Public Links Championships and has a Top 10 rating by Golf Digest as one of the best courses in the state of Hawai’i. It first played host to the John Burns Intercollegiate in 1978, the second year of the tournament.

Participants will play a total of 54 holes over the three-day tournament at the 6,991-yard, par 72 course with an 8:30 a.m. HTZ, shotgun start each day.

California is seeking its fifth straight tournament title. During their four-year title run, the Golden Bears captured the first three crowns at the Turtle Bay Resort on the North Shore of O’ahu before winning the rain-shortened tourney last year at Wailua.

In last year’s tournament, the final day was cancelled as the island of Kaua’i was under a flash flood warning. California was declared the champion with a 560 total, nine strokes better than runner-ups Texas A&M and BYU (569). BYU’s Justin Keiley took medalist honors at 10-under 134 while defending champion Joel Stalter was runner-up at 6-under 138.

Virginia will be paired with Hawaii, Arizona and UTEP during the opening round. The

Live scoring of the event will be on Golfstat.com.