Feb. 4, 2005

GAINESVILLE, Fla - After a three-month layoff, the UAB men's golf team returns to action Saturday and Sunday at the 2005 Sun Trust Gator Invitational in Gainesville, Fla. Alan Kaufman's club will face a field that includes some of the top college golf teams from around the nation, including the College of Charleston, Florida, Florida State, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Kentucky, LSU, North Florida, Ohio State, Purdue, South Carolina, Tennessee, UCF and Wake Forest. The two-day, 54-hole event will be played at the par-70, 6,701-yard University Golf Course at the University of Florida.

"I always schedule aggressively," UAB head coach Alan Kaufman said. "That is done for a good reason, though. You can't expect to beat the best if you never play the best. Competing at this level of college golf dictates that you put yourself up against the best players and the best teams in the nation week-in and week-out. That's how you prepare to succeed in the postseason. We'll get to play against some very good golfers and very good teams this weekend. Hopefully, we can set a good pace for ourselves heading into the spring."

UAB finished 14th out of 15 teams at the same tournament last year, but Chris Cousins won the individual medalist honors at the event, firing rounds of 67-70-70. Then-senior Tigh VanLeeuwen finished tied for fifth for UAB as well.

Cousins (5-11, Sr., Aberdare, Wales) returns to the event this year for the Blazers and hopes to be totally healed from a wrist injury which kept him out of one of UAB's four fall events. While his three tournaments weren't up to his 2003-04 standard which elevated him to a top-50 individual ranking in the early spring of last year, Cousins is fully recovered and expected to regain his form as one of the Blazer leaders as the spring season gets underway. The Welshman notched four top-10 finishes and 11 rounds of even or under-par play as a junior.

Cousins' countryman and fellow senior Ryan Thomas (5-9, Sr., Aberdare, Wales) fielded 13 even or under-par rounds last season and started fall play this season with a fourth-place finish at the Mason Rudolph Championship in September. Thomas finished as the top golfer in two of UAB's four fall events. Thomas joins junior Clark Brown as Blazers who return to the Gator Invitational this spring. Thomas shot a 72-72-75 last season and finished tied for 27th overall in the 2004 event. Brown fired rounds of 72-77-77 and was tied for 55th in last season's event. Those two join Cousins, sophomore Garrett Osborn and freshman Marco Zirov as UAB's first five for the tournament.

"We're ready to get back out on the course," Kaufman said. "We were a little disappointed with our fall results, but it has given us motivation to get better and a starting point for the spring. I've got some talent and a lot of potential in these young men. Now it's just a matter of going out there and playing."

After the weekend play, UAB will continue its spring season Feb. 20-22 at the Mercedes Benz Collegiate in Ponte Verdra, Fla., in a tournament hosted by perennial men's golf power North Florida.