July 30, 2009

Courtesy of LSU Athletics

BATON ROUGE – Sophomore All-American John Peterson became the first LSU Tiger to qualify for the 109th United States Amateur Championship on Wednesday after earning a second-place finish at the sectional qualifier at the Texas Star Golf Course in Euless, Texas.

Peterson, a native of Fort Worth, Texas, followed a 3-under par 68 in the first round with a 4-under 67 in the second round to finish the tournament with a 36-hole score of 7-under 135 at the par-71 layout.

He finished the tournament just one shot out of the lead as the winning score of 8-under 134 went to Marc Sambol of Dallas, who just completed his redshirt freshman season at Southern Methodist University.

This will mark Peterson’s first career appearance at the U.S. Amateur Championship as this year’s event will be held at historic Southern Hill Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., from Aug. 24-30. It will also mark the fifth year in a row that the LSU men’s golf program will be represented at the U.S. Amateur.

Peterson enters his junior season at LSU after establishing himself as one of the nation’s premier players with an outstanding sophomore season in 2008-09. He became the first Tiger to earn All-America honors since 2003 as he was named a PING Second-Team All-American and PING All-Southeast Region Team member for his performance. He also earned his first career First-Team All-SEC honor a year ago.

He finished the 2008-09 season with a No. 20 national ranking in the final Golfweek/Sagarin Individual Player Rankings while leading the team with six top-10 finishes and an impressive 72.48 scoring average. Peterson was the third-place finish at both the SEC Championships and NCAA South Central Regional.