This Week In Rattlers Golf
Las Vegas Desert Classic
March 1-3 • Boulder City, Nevada (Boulder Creek Golf Course)
•   The St. Mary's Men's Golf team heads to the Las Vegas Desert Classic for a three-day, 54-hole tournament, hosted by Missouri-St. Louis. Senior Baptiste Touchard is the defending individual medalist after firing a 204 (68-67-69) to finish -12. This is the seventh straight year that the Rattlers are competing in the annual tournament outside Las Vegas.
•   The Rattlers finished second at the Rattler Invitational at the Dominion Country Club in their last tournament. St. Mary's has finished first or second in four of its last five tournaments, and currently ranked seventh by Scoreboard powered by clipp'd.All seven golfers for StMU finished in the top 27 in the standings, led by senior Kongpop Kaikaew who tied for fourth with his even-par 216.
•   Senior Baptiste Touchard was named the Lone Star Men's Golfer of the Week after his victory in Florida. It is his first award of the season, but the fourth for the team, as Kongpop Kaikaew has won twice and Guillaume Paquette once.
•   St. Mary's jumped four spots to ninth in the GCAA Coaches Poll on Oct. 31 in the final poll of the fall. The Rattlers have been ranked in the top 25 in eight straight polls, the second-longest streak in school history behind the 20 straight from 2018-2020.
•   The field for the tournament will consist of teams from #23 Cal State East Bay, Cal State Monterey Bay, Cal State San Bernardino, #13 Central Missouri, Colorado Christian, #14 Colorado Mesa, Colorado School of Mines, #16 Colorado State-Pueblo, DBU, #5 Florida Southern, #24 Lincoln Memorial, host Missouri-St. Louis, #12 North Georgia, Oklahoma Christian, Southwestern Oklahoma State, #9 St. Mary's, UIndy, UT Tyler, #3 West Florida and #11 West Texas A&M.
•   The lineup for the Las Vegas Classic will be 1) Baptiste Touchard, 2) Elijah Galvan, 3) Guillaume Paquette, 4) Philip Hallstrom and 5) Connor Smith.
•   The Rattlers will be in foursomes with golfers from #14 Colorado Mesa, #24 Lincoln Memorial and Cal State Monterey Bay and will tee off on holes 10 through 13 in a shotgun start at 1:30 p.m.
•   The weather forecast for Boulder City, Nev., will be near record-high temperatures on Sunday, closing in on 85 degrees, with 80 on Monday and 74 on Tuesday. Sunny skies will dominate the landscape with winds in the 10-20 mph range all three days.
•   The 264 shot by the Rattlers in the second round of the Skip Wagnon Invitational breaks the school single-round record by four strokes, while the 806 shatters the 54-hole tournament record of 833 from the 2004 team at the St. Edward's Invitational. Kongpop Kaikaew's 197 also establishes a new 54-hole individual record, bettering his own record of 198 from last year at the Ryan Palmer Foundation Invitational.
•   One of the strengths of the Rattlers is that any tournament, anyone can step up to be a leader. Kongpop Kaikaew has led the team seven times, and Baptiste Touchard has led six times, while Philip Hallstrom has been the low scorer five times, and Guillaume Paquette has done so four times in their StMU careers.
