Oct. 25, 2012

STANFORD, Calif. - STANFORD, Calif. - The No. 18 Stanford men's golf team is poised to do something Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson can only dream of, not an easy feat considering the long list of courses played and tournaments won by two of this generations' greatest golfers.

On October 29-30, the Cardinal will host the Stanford Classic at the world-renowned Cypress Point Club. According to club president Tony Ridder, the event came about on the suggestion of club member Andy Hunter.

"I thought it was a good idea, so I recommended it to the board and it was approved," said Ridder. "As a club, we like to support amateur golf."

While Woods, Mickelson and many other top golfers have played rounds at Cypress Point, they've never played the famed layout in a competition.

The Classic will feature seven teams in addition to the host Cardinal. Washington, USC, UCLA, Duke, Georgia, Michigan and Texas round out the field for a rare match-play format. The first round will be four-ball play, followed by foursomes and finally singles matches. Each squad will be represented by six players competing in both winners' and losers' brackets to ensure that each team plays both days.

Round 1 matchups, determined by averaging Golfstat and Golfweek rankings, will feature Texas (1) vs. Michigan (8), Washington (2) vs. Stanford (7), USC (3) vs. (6) Duke and UCLA (4) vs. Georgia (5).

"We're really excited," said Knowles Family Director of Men's Golf and Stanford Head Coach Conrad Ray. "It's a special opportunity."

Ranked No. 2 in Golf Magazine's 2011 list of Best Courses in America, from 1947 until 1991 Cypress Point was one of the three courses used in the Crosby/AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

In 1981, Cypress Point hosted the Walker Cup, which features amateurs from the U.S. taking on amateurs from Great Britain and Ireland in a Ryder Cup-type format.

Since leaving the AT&T Pro-Am rotation in 1991 only member events have been held. The one exception is on October 9, 2012 Davis Love, Bubba Watson, Ricky Fowler and Nick Watney played a match that was supposed to be a recreation of "The Match". It was done in connection with the recent $100 million campaign for First Tee.

No live scoring is available for this event.