Bulldogs Add Sharkey Collegiate To Spring Slate
January 31, 2024 | Men's Golf
STARKVILLE – The No. 19 Mississippi State men's golf team has added the Thomas Sharkey Individual Collegiate on February 3-4 to its spring schedule. The event will see MSU send a contingent of four individuals to compete in the 56-man field. Thirty-six holes will be played on Saturday, with 18 holes the following day. Both days will be kicked off via a shotgun start at 8:15 a.m. CT.
The tournament is set to emanate from the Par-72, 6,900-yard, Georgia Southern University Golf Course in Statesboro, Georgia. The Bulldog individuals will participate in a field that sees representation from six teams inside the Top 25 and five SEC programs, including No. 1 Auburn, No. 5 Ole Miss and hosts Georgia Southern.
State will be represented by Bo Blanchard, Drew Wilson, David Beard and Alejandro Fierro. Blanchard and Fierro have both competed once earlier this season, while Wilson and Beard are set to make their debuts in the Maroon and White.
Blanchard, a sophomore and 2021-22 SEC First Academic Honor Roll member, competed individually at the season-opening Visit Knoxville Collegiate. He also competed at last year's Sharkey Collegiate, where he finished tied for 14th in his collegiate debut.
Wilson, a redshirt freshman from Potts Camp, Mississippi, will make his collegiate debut. In June, he put on a show at the Yellowhammer Invitational and was tied for first but lost a three-hole playoff.
Beard is a former NJCAA First Team All-American and took home two tournament titles this summer, winning the Magnolia Amateur and besting Bulldog teammate Hunter Logan by one stroke to win the Gulf States Open.
Fierro rounds out the Bulldog lineup in his second collegiate event. The freshman from Ciudad Del Carmen, Mexico was the No. 30 prospect in the 2023 class according to the AJGA Rolex rankings and claimed seven victories in his junior career, along with 22 top-10 finishes. Most recently, Fierro made his collegiate debut at the Fallen Oak Collegiate, where he carded the first two eagles of his career and shot a 1-under 71 in the tournament's closing round.
Formerly known as the GS Individual Collegiate, the Georgia Southern renamed the tournament the Thomas Sharkey Individual Collegiate in 2021 to honor the memory of Sharkey, who played for the Eagles from 2009-11 and was tragically killed in a house fire in his native Scotland in the summer of 2011. The Georgia Southern golf program placed a memorial stone dedicated to him at its practice facility, and Sharkey's locker has his name in it in memory of him. After redshirting the 2009-10 season, Sharkey played in six events in the 2010-11 campaign.
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