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Results for July 2009 Back to Campus Insider Index

D-II men want match play at nationals

Friday, July 31, 2009 Comments
With the NCAA Men's Championship at the Division I level successful shifted to a match-play format to determine a team winner, the Division II men's golf committee wants to make a similar move. The committee has forwarded to the D-II Championships Committee a proposal for the 2011 national championship that would follow the new the D-I format: three stroke-play rounds with the low eight teams advancing to a match-play bracket. An individual champion would also be named after the 54 stroke-play holes.

The championship would be a five-day event with the quarterfinals and semifinals of the match-play portion contested on one day. (The D-I championship was played this way last May but will be a six-day event beginning next year, with each round of match play being contested on one day.)

Committee members recommended the format change based on feedback from coaches, as well as reviewing the success of the format in Division I. Many in the golf community had argued that the previous four rounds of stroke play during which teams used the “play five/count four” approach was difficult for people to follow as far as scoring goes. Match play, on the other hand, is more spectator-friendly and provides for a better student-athlete experience as well.

“It provides for a different type of championship, and it offers excitement for more teams who might not be so close to the lead in that third round,” D-II men's committee chairman (and Oauchita Baptist athletic director) Dave Sharp told the NCAA News. “It brings more teams into the championship picture."


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One month to go before 2009-10 begins

Thursday, July 30, 2009 Comments
One month left until the start of the 2009-10 college campaign and with a little more knowledge of what to expect as the season draws near, here is an updated "early" top 10 projection

MEN
1. Oklahoma State
Rickie Fowler's early jump to the pros is offset by the depth of the Cowboy lineup.

2. Washington
Nick Taylor is backing up his strong junior season with the Huskies with arguably the best summer amateur season of any golfer.

3. Stanford
The play from sophomore-to-be David Chung, the North & South champion,  the fall-off in Sihwan Kim's play of late.

4. Arizona State
Foreign depth is inconsistent at times, but when it's playing well it's going to be tough to beat.

5. Texas A&M
Haven't heard much from Cameron Peck this summer but don't be surprised for him to play lights out right from his arrival in College Station.

6. Alabama
Bud Cauley isn't likely to have sophomore slump.

7. Georgia
The Bulldogs are the squad most harmed by losses to graduation (Adam Mitchell, Brian Harman). Then again, that's what we were saying two years ago with Brendon Todd and Chris Kirk leaving and UGa remained a national power.

8. Illinois
Does Coach Mike Small, having won a second PGA of America Professional National Championship title, have any eligibility remaining?

9. Florida
Lots of fresh blood coming in, with Tyson Alexander expected to offer senior spark.

10. Duke
Great recruiting class coming in will help coach Jamie Green prove why he was the right choice for the Blue Devils in replacing O.D. Vincent.


WOMEN
1. Arizona State
Love the depth. Jennifer Johnson's addition allows for the lose to graduation of Azahara Munoz and Jennifer Osborn to sting a little less.

2. USC
Jennifer Song has gotten over NCAA Championship slip up with her WAPL victory and low amateur honors at U.S. Women's Open

3. UCLA
Sydnee Michaels looks to have worked through her spring swing overhaul and Tiffany Lua looks like a starter in an already packed line up.

4. Denver
While losing in the final at the WAPL and Girls' Junior, Kimberly Kim's game seems to have turned a corner with her advancing that far. Senior Stephanie Sherlock might be most underrated player in all of college golf.

5. Auburn
Cydney Clanton is having solid summer and Candace Schepperle could contend for player of the year.

6. Wake Forest
Incoming freshman Michelle Shin is having solid summer after earning berth in the U.S. Women's Open.

7. Purdue
Boilermakers have players ready for primetime in Maude Aimee LaBlanc and Junthima Gulyanamitta.

8. Oklahoma State
Lose a lot of experience in seniors Pernilla Lindberg and Karin Kinnerud but rookies Victoria Park and Jane Rah should help fill the gap.

9. Pepperdine
The Waves have lots of players who can go low, which is always a plus.

10. Virginia
Whitney Neuhauser and Calle Nielson have had successful summers and freshman-to-be Brittany Altomare is one to watch.


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Lovemark set to make pro debut at Canadian Open

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 Comments
I wasn't holding my breath, but I did have a passing thought last week that, having not heard a peep from Jamie Lovemark this summer, perhaps he might have a second thought and consider returning to USC for his senior season. Alas, Trojan fans, those hopes go out the door this week as the former NCAA champion who is recovering from a broken rib that prematurely ended his junior season last May makes his pro debut this week at the PGA Tour's RBC Canadian Open.

Additionally, Lovemark signed a equipment deal with Nike Golf that was officially announced this morning. According to Nike's release, he'll play the SQ Sumo 5000 driver, SQ2 3-wood (13-degree) Fairway Wood, the Victory Red Forged TW blades (3- PW) and the 52-degree, 56-degree and 60-degree Victory Red Forged wedges this week as well as  Nike ONE Tour D ball.  

NCAA folks don't like student-athletes to have endorsement deals, so Lovemark's college career is officially over.
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What if soon-to-be pro Fowler wins APL or Amateur?

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 Comments
Rickie Fowler revealed this week what most people had speculated for some time now: that he will turn pro this fall after his likely participation in the Walker Cup, rather than return to Oklahoma State for his junior season. The 20-year-old from Murietta, Calif., who is in the midst of playing at the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship, has made the cut in two of five PGA Tour events he's competed in as an amateur, including the 2008 U.S. Open.

Rickie Fowler.jpgWhat will be interesting now for Fowler is the dilemma he might face either later this week at the Jimmie Austin GC in Norman, Okla., or next month should he succeed at the APL (he finished second to medalist Nick Taylor during stroke-play qualifying that wrapped up yesterday) or the U.S. Amateur Championship at Southern Hills in Tulsa. If Fowler should win the APL and/or was a finalist at the Amateur, he would be earn a invitation to play in the 2010 Masters … provided he is still an amateur.

So, would Fowler put his pro career on hold (and presumably return to OSU for one more year) if those carrots were dangled in front of him?

Would you?

It's the same question Colt Knost faced two years ago after winning both the APL and U.S. Amateur. He had already stated he would turn pro after the Walker Cup and ultimately turned down the Masters to stick to his original plan (he also had exhausted his college eligibility so he didn't have a comfortable fall back of places to play should he have remained an amateur).

Having not asked Fowler the question directly, I can only speculate on what he might do. That said, my gut says that while the invitations would be tempting he would stick with his pro plans. If he was playing well enough to win either the APL or Amateur, he would likely feel like his game was in good enough form to get to the final stage of PGA Tour Q school and earn a card.

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NCAA D-I men's committee sticks with status quo

Tuesday, July 7, 2009 Comments
Uneventful.

That was the best way to describe the proceedings during the NCAA men's Division I golf committee's recent summer meeting.

Of course, considering all the heavy lifting the committee has done when it has gotten together at this time the past few years--doing away with regional allocations in the post-season, establishing the ".500 rule" for NCAA-regional eligibility, changing the format of the NCAA Championship to use match play to determine the winning team--two lazy days in Indianapolis wasn't the worst thing to have occurred.

That's also not to say there wasn't a fair amount of discussion and debate that took place. Members of the committee, chaired by Charlotte senior associate athletic director Darin Spease used the time to review some of its recent changes as well as try to get a handle on some coming issues.

* While the professional tours having agreed to implement the USGA's condition of competition regarding changes to grooves in 2010, the NCAA golf committee decided to follow the timeline the USGA is using for its amateur competitions, where the change would go into effect in 2014.

* The committee was pleased with the success of the new match-play format as it made its debut at the 2009 championship. While there was talk about potentially adding more teams into the match-play portion of the event, the committee decided to keep the number at eight. The thought being that it was a manageable number of schools advancing and a small enough number that it established a prestige factor for those teams that did qualify.

* The committee talked about some minor tweaks with the match-play competition, among them allowing coaches to set their line-ups in rather than have the Golfstat rankings determine match-ups. No change was agreed to--some committee members want to make sure that the top players on each team were guaranteed to play each other--although they left room for more discussion about the matter to take place when coaches convene for their annual "Town Hall Meeting" during the U.S. Junior Amateur in two weeks.

Also to be discussed at the Town Hall meeting is how to handle the third round of stroke play at the NCAA Championship. Currently, the leading teams after 36 holes play in the morning wave, creating potentially an anti-climatic environment in the afternoon when the remaining schools in the 30-team field are finishing their final round. The simplest solution would be to reverse the order and have the leading teams play in the afternoon, although there is a group of coaches that would prefer to have the morning times for the leading teams as it typically allows them to play the course in the best conditions.
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Collegegolf.com put me in my place

Thursday, July 2, 2009 Comments
Got to do a rare thing for me yesterday: actually play a round of golf.

It was only my third 18-hole round of the year, which means President Obama has played more golf than I have in 2009. I'm not sure if that says more about his ability to juggle his schedule and make time to play the game, or my inability to do the same. At any rate ...

I have a 12.7 handicap index, so my 92 at New Haven CC was not a horrible score, but certainly not my best effort. Suffice it to say, if I was a junior golfer and had aspirations to play Division I college golf, I'd best be trying to get in more practice ... or making alternative plans.

If I didn't know this already, I had it confirmed when I tried to see how my scores would hold up if I was playing in a Division I tournament by plugging in some numbers at www.collegegolf.com.

The site is the brainchild of Dean Frischknecht with the help of Mark Laesch of Golfstat. Frischknecht has been the author of the Ping American College Golf Guide for more than two decades, and his tireless efforts to help junior golfers find a place for them to play at the collegiate level has been a tremendous service. 

Going to the website, I entered my average score and the average length course I play on. The website then converts my stats into "adjusted" college scores for any number of individual tournaments. If the average scoring in a certain round at a certain tournament is higher than normal (perhaps due to weather), the conversion takes that into account (along with the yardage the tournament was played at), allowing you to get a fair assessment of how you would stand if you too had played in that college event.

Being a University of Michigan graduate, I decided to first see how I would have done if I were playing for the Big Ten title last May at Penn State's Blue Course. The numbers obviously weren't all that surprising: I would have been dead last, shooting rounds of 92-93-93-94 for a 372, 31 shots worse than the actual last-place finisher and 61 back of the second-to-last-place finisher. (Ugh)

Fooling around a little bit, the same outcome happened at the ACC Championship ... and the SEC ... and the Pac-10 ... and well you get where I'm going. I even tried a fewer lower-profile D-I conferences. Suffice it to say, I saw I was out of my league at the Division I level.

So I tried D-II, D-III, NAIA, NJCAA to see if I might fare any better. Every now and then I'd finish a few places better than last, but never close to contention.

Again, I didn't have any real delusions that my golf game was scholarship worthy, but the website was a pretty simple way for me to see how I stack up in the big picture of college golf. More importantly, it's a great tool for junior golfers who are starting to explore potentially playing at the college level and want a realistic idea of how their game might compare.

If you're a junior golfer who hasn't given collegegolf.com a look, you're missing out.
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Illinois coach Small comes up big at PGA of America's PNC

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 Comments
For the second time in five years, Illinois men's coach Mike Small has won the PGA of America's national championship for its rank-and-file members.

Mike Small playing photo.jpgA final-round 68 at Twin Warriors GC in Santa Ana Pueblo, N.M., earlier today gave Small gave him seven-under 277 total and a one-stroke victory over Mark Sheftic and Steve Schneiter at the PGA Professional National Championship.

"This is huge," Small said. "It validates the one I had four years ago and sets me up for a good year-and-a-half of golf. It also brings credibility to our program."

It also secured him a place in the field at next month's PGA Championship at Hazeltine National GC outside of Minneapolis. It will be Small's eighth appearance in a major championship. He made the cut in the 2005 and 2007 PGA, earning the low club professional honors in the later

Small has finished second in the event on two other occassions.
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