Clemson Opens Men’s Golf Season at Inverness
Clemson, SC—The Clemson men’s golf team will open its 2024-25 season on Monday, September 9 at the famed Inverness Golf Club in Toledo, OH. Jordan Byrd’s Tigers will be one of 12 teams in a strong field for the Inverness Intercollegiate that includes five teams from the ACC and three from the SEC.
Byrd will take a team composed of two seniors, two true freshman and a junior who will be playing in his first career event for Clemson.
The field for includes defending NCAA Champion Auburn Tigers and the 2024 NCAA Chapel Hill Regional Clemson Tigers. Other ACC teams in the field are SMU, Virginia, Louisville and Wake Forest. Auburn is joined by Vanderbilt and Oklahoma among the SEC teams. Purdue, Texas Tech, Cal Poly and Toledo round out the field of teams who will play 36 holes on Monday and 18 on Tuesday.
Inverness is a Donald Ross designed course (1918) that has been the site of six professional major championships, including four US Opens, and two NCAA Championships, including the 2009 tournament that was the first played under the current format that determines the national champion through match play.
Inverness gained considerable fame in the 1940s when its head professional was Hall of Fame Golfer Byron Nelson.
Seniors Andrew Swanson and Kian Rose will lead the Tigers this week. Swanson finished 18th at the NCAA Championships last year, best among Clemson golfers, leading the Tigers to a #22 national finish. He finished last year with a 72.50 stroke average, second on the team. The native of Bluffton, SC is a veteran of 26 tournaments for the Tigers. Rose is a red-shirt senior who had an injury plagued 2024. He had a 73.95 stroke average in eight tournaments and this will be his 29th career tournament for the Tigers.
True freshmen Rich Wills and Colin Salema will be in Clemson’s opening tournament lineup. It marks the first time in six years that two true freshmen have been in the lineup for the first tournament of the year. That 2018 season opening lineup at The Carpet Classic included freshmen Jacob Bridgeman and Zack Gordon.
Wills is from Camerton, NC and he was the 3A Player of the Year in the state for Cramer High School. Salema is also a native of North Carolina, as he played his high school golf at Providence High School in Matthews. Salema was ranked among the top 25 players in the nation in is high school class.
Lucas Augustsson is a junior who will be in the Clemson lineup for the first time. The native of Sweden is a transfer from East Carolina where he was a two-time AAA all-conference player. His 71.29 stroke average last year was the second best in Pirates golf history.