MALIBU, Calif. — The Pepperdine men’s golf team looks ahead to another successful season in 2024-2025 and returns to action on Saturday at the Sahalee Players Championship.
 
EVENT INFO — The tournament will be held at the par 72, 7,007-yard Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish, Washington.  There will be 36 holes of golf on Saturday and 18 holes on Sunday.  Pepperdine will be paired with Northwestern and UNLV for both rounds on the first day, teeing off on hole 10.
 
Live scoring will be available via Golfstat and can be found on the men’s golf schedule page on www.PepperdineWaves.com.
 
FIELD — Along with Pepperdine and tournament-host #20 Washington, the field includes #2 Arizona State, #9 Florida, #10 North Carolina, #15 Arizona, #18 Texas A&M, #19 Oklahoma State, #23 Duke, #25 Oregon, Northwestern, TCU and UNLV.  Rankings from Golfweek preseason poll.
 
EVENT HISTORY — Past Waves’ winners at the Sahalee Players Championship include Jason Gore (1996), Sahith Theegala (2017) and Joe Highsmith (2019).
 
Inaugurated in 1992, the Sahalee Players Championship (SPC) was created to bring the best male amateur golfers in the world to compete at Sahalee on an annual basis. Between 1992 and 2019, Sahalee hosted the SPC on 26 occasions as an independently run elite Amateur tournament. The year 2020 saw the impact of a global pandemic, and the explosion in popularity and impact of NCAA college golf. In the Spring of 2021, Sahalee Country Club, in partnership with the University of Washington, announced that the SPC will transition to a collegiate event hosting the top men’s golf programs in the country in September 2023.
 
PEPPERDINE LINEUP — Pepperdine’s lineup consists of junior Mahanth Chirravuri (Chandler, Ariz./Hamilton HS/USC), sophomore Kristoffer Kuvaas (Houston, Texas/The Village School), junior Brady Siravo (Sacramento, Calif./Jesuit HS), freshman Luke Bailey (Encinitas, Calif./Santa Fe Christian HS) and sophomore William Walsh (San Mateo, Calif./Juniper Serra HS).
 
RANKINGS — Pepperdine is ranked #21 in the Golf Channel preseason rankings this week.
 
ROSTER — The Waves return five starters this season and welcome three newcomers.  Juniors Mahanth Chirravuri, Joshua Koo and Brady Siravo, as well as sophomores Kristoffer Kuvaas and William Walsh return after strong efforts last season.  Siravo is in his third year with the Waves after being a true freshman in 2022-23, while the other four begin their second.  Graduate transfer Nathan Han (Columbia) will look to make an impact for Pepperdine this season, while freshmen Luke Bailey (Encinitas, Calif./Santa Fe Christian HS) and Byungho Lee (Seoul, South Korea/Spring Creek Academy (Plano)) also joined the squad.  The breakdown is one graduate student, three juniors, two sophomores and two freshmen.
 
2023-2024 RECAP — Last season, Pepperdine finished in second-place at the WCC Championships stroke play, earning the #2 seed in the inaugural match play format.  The Waves defeated PCH Cup rival LMU in the semifinal before going head-to-head with eventual champions San Diego in the final bout.  Brady Siravo and William Walsh tied for first alongside LMU’s Riley Lewis during stroke play, and while both outplayed the Lions’ golfer in the playoff, Siravo came away with his first-ever collegiate tournament win. 
 
The Waves finished in the top-five in four tournaments and won one tournament throughout the season, the Saticoy Showdown in the spring, where Kristoffer Kuvaas won his first individual collegiate tournament as well.  Siravo, Walsh and Mahanth Chirravuri each tabbed All-West Coast Conference first team nods, while Chirravuri went on to earn PING All-West Region honors.  The same three Waves earned a bid to the NCAA Rancho Santa Fe Regional as individuals.
 
WAVES ON THE PGA TOUR — Four Pepperdine alumni are currently competing or earned their PGA Tour cards this season.  Sahith Theegala and Andrew Putnam have been playing for multiple years, while Joe Highsmith is in his first year with a card after earning it through the 2023 Korn Ferry Tour.  William Mouw will become the fourth Pepperdine alumnus with his Tour card.  He is currently #12 on the Korn Ferry Tour points list after tying for second at the Albertsons Boise Open and with only three events remaining, cannot fall outside the top-30 which earn his card for next season.
 
THEEGALA EARNS SPOT ON U.S. PRESIDENTS CUP TEAM — Sahith Theegala earned a spot on the 2024 U.S. Presidents Cup Team in early September after hanging on to the sixth and final automatic qualifying spot at the BMW Championships at the end of August.  The U.S. Presidents Cup is a series of men’s golf matches between a team representing the United States and an International Team representing the rest of the world minus Europe and is held bi-annually. This year’s event will be held at the Royal Montreal Golf Course in Montreal, Canada on September 24-29.
 
Theegala will join the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Wyndham Clark, Patrick Cantlay, Keegan Bradley, Sam Burns, Tony Finau, Brian Harman, Russell Henley and Max Homa on the American’s squad.
 
PEPPERDINE GOLF — Thanks to its victories at the 1997 and 2021 NCAA Championships, Pepperdine has clinched a spot among the sport’s elite. The Waves have made 13 appearances at the NCAA finals since 1993, and have achieved NCAA Regional berths in 27 of the last 32 tries. In the West Coast Conference, the Waves have won a league-best 22 championships since 1987 and have finished either first or second in 29 of the last 37 tournaments.
 
Pepperdine has had 21 student-athletes earn All-American honors a total of 33 times. Sahith Theegala was the unanimous national player of the year in 2020, and the Waves have had two Byron Nelson Award winners (Jason Allred in 2002 and Michael Putnam in 2005).  Four Waves will be competing on the PGA Tour next season, while three currently possess their PGA Tour cards.
 
BEARD — Former Pepperdine All-American Michael Beard is in his 13th season as the Waves’ head coach. He earned the Dave Williams Award as the Division I National Coach of the Year in 2020 after leading the Waves to the #1 ranking before the pandemic cancelled the season, then led Pepperdine to the NCAA title in 2021. He became the first WCC men’s golf coach ever to earn WCC Coach of the Year honors three consecutive years (beginning in 2016) and he extended that streak to six straight in 2022 (he and Gonzaga’s Mark Few are the only WCC coaches to win six straight Coach of the Year awards). Beard competed for the Waves between 1999-2002 and was a GCAA All-American honorable mention selection in both 2000 and 2002. He was the medalist at the 2000 NCAA West Regional and the 2002 WCC Championships and was a four-time All-WCC first teamer. After playing professionally for several years, he served as an assistant coach at Pepperdine for one season and helped the Waves to make the 2011 NCAA Championships. Beard returned to Pepperdine in December 2012 after spending the previous season-and-a-half as an assistant at Arizona State.
 
JR. WAVES: Register your kid(s) to join Pepperdine’s official kids club, “Jr. Waves” for the 2024-2025 academic year.  Jr. Waves receive an exclusive t-shirt, membership card and a lanyard that grants free general admission to all Pepperdine ticketed sporting events. Memberships start at $100 per kid.
 
ABOUT PEPPERDINE — Pepperdine boasts a one-of-a-kind athletic department with unprecedented success for a school of its size. The Waves have won NCAA Division I championships in five different men’s sports — one of just 20 schools to have accomplished this feat — and 10 overall. Of this elite group, Pepperdine has the smallest undergraduate enrollment, is the only school without football and is the only university that has not been affiliated with a “major” conference. The Waves have won a total of 26 team or individual national championships in their history. Pepperdine has also earned the Division I-AAA All-Sports Trophy, an award based on postseason success that’s given to the top non-football school, four times (most recently in 2022-23). Located in scenic Malibu, California, the university overlooks the Pacific Ocean and its campus and athletic facilities are regularly voted among the nation’s most beautiful. Pepperdine, which is affiliated with the Church of Christ, ranks #76 overall on U.S. News and World Report’s list of America’s best colleges.