I read with interest an article in the NCAA News last week about ice hockey and the issues coaches in their sport are having in terms of getting recruits, specifically Canadian players, to consider the U.S. college system versus playing in Canadian junior leagues. The perception of some is that the junior leagues provide a quicker, smoother route to the NHL than go to American colleges. The junior leagues are for-profit businesses that have financial stakes in getting young skaters to play for them, and have even begun to reach into the U.S. to try and lure top juniors to come north of the border.

Needless to say, their success in attracting players has a direct impact on college programs. To help fight this, the commissioners of the various Division I ice hockey conferences have created College Hockey, Inc., a consortium that will  promote the benefits of accepting scholarships and playing college hockey. CHI won't represent a single school but the overall interests of college hockey and try to educate young players about the fact that college hockey develops them for the NHL just as effectively plus provides opportunities for those who might not have the skills to play the game at the highest level professionally.

"This is overdue," said Paul Kelly, a former NHL players association executive director who will oversee College Hockey Inc. "The colleges desperately need help. They are losing this battle. I won't let that happen."

OK, so what does this have to do with college golf?

I see some parallels between the two sports, and I think college hockey might be on to something that the folks who have a vested interest in college golf might want to consider.

As with Canadian junior leagues to college hockey, the lure of turning pro and taking your lumps on developmental/mini-tours to get your game into shape for the PGA/LPGA/European Tour is the single biggest threat to the continued development of college golf. Who needs to attend school, and have the distractions of studying at a university, if I can compete on a mini-tour, make some money (however small) and learn what it's like to play for pay?

I don't have any hard and fast data to back me up, but it feels as if "turning pro" is becoming a more attractive option of late for junior golfers, particularly for "elite" players in the women's game. Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel, Michelle Wie, Brittany Lincicome, Esther Choe and Vicky Hurst have all bypassed college entirely in the last five to 10 years. Mina Harigae, Jane Rah and most recently Sue Kim have all in the last two years tried college for a semester and decided it was time to move on.

I'm personally a believer attending college and playing college golf is an incredibly valuable experience. Elite players can indeed sharpen their games with top-notch competition (see Rickie Fowler), and diamonds-in-the-rough can be polished in a relatively low-pressure setting (room and board, books and food all paid for; no need to book your own hotels or plane tickets). However, I also believe there is a large contingent of people who think college golf is at best a risky proposition and at worst a waste of time.

Would it be in the best interests of the Golf Coaches Association of America and the National Golf Coaches Association then to consider creating a consortium similar to College Hockey Inc., to promote the benefits of college golf and dispel myths that continue to hurt the public perception of the game? I'm asking as much as I am suggesting. There might be down sides to this (aside from cost) that I'm not thinking of right now. And yet, the upsides seem great.

It says something about the quality of women's amateur golf that the seven players who were given sponsor's invitations to compete at the LPGA Tour's Kraft Nabisco Championship in March all have previously played in a women's major championship (see chart below).

U.S. Women's Amateur and Women's Amateur Public Links winner Jennifer Song headlines the list of amateur golfers who'll tee it up at Mission Hills CC in Rancho Mirage, Calif. The USC sophomore recently said she intends to turn professional this summer, the same circumstance that college standouts Stacy Lewis and Amanda Blumenherst found themselves in 2008 and 2009, respectively, when they were invited to play in the tournament. Both Lewis and Blumenherst declined their invitations to the Kraft Nabisco, stating that they wanted to keep all their available sponsor's exemptions for when they were professionals in hopes they would win enough money in those events to earn LPGA Tour cards without having to go to Q school.

Asked if he was concerned Song might do the same this time, Kraft Nabisco tournament director Terry Wilcox said that he had sent Song her invitation yesterday and has already received her confirmation. "She evidently is intending, at this time, to play," Wilcox said. "She sounded very anxious to play, so I'm assuming she's going to do it. … Maybe she'll become aware of [what Lewis and Blumenherst did] between now and March and withdraw. I don't know. But as of now she's accepted the invitation."

Song is one of five college players who will compete in the tournament. The others are Auburn senior Candace Schepperle and junior Cydney Clanton, Arizona State freshman Jennifer Johnson and Denver freshman Kimberly Kim.

Two prominent junior golfers—Alexis Thompson and Jessica Korda—round of the list of invitees. Both are likely to be selected in the coming weeks for the 2010 U.S. Curtis Cup team. Korda this past weekend won the South Atlantic Amateur in record fashion, breaking the 85-year-old's mark for best 18-hole score (62) and 72-hole total (13-under 275, eight strokes better than the previous record).

In this week's issue of Golf World, my story in the Amateur Spotlight section focuses on Stanford senior Joseph Bramlett, who is back practicing with the Cardinal and hoping to crack the starting lineup this spring as he finishes up a injury-hampered career. Last month, doctors agreed his right wrist was strong enough to allow the 21-year-old from Saratoga, Calif., to play 18 holes again. He's trying to qualify for the one open spot in the Stanford lineup when the team plays in Hawaii early next month.

Quick set-up: After playing 13 tournaments his freshman year (2006-07), posting a 71.5 average, earning second-team All-American honors and helping Stanford claim its first NCAA title in 14 years, Bramlett has played in just nine college events in the past 31 months, hampered by two separate freak injuries to the wrist.

Suffice it to say, in my phone interview with Bramlett last week, you could tell he is pretty pumped about getting get back to a regular practice routine with the rest of his teammates. "It’s been exciting … to get a little bit of that trash talking again once you get back on the course, and then backing it up," he joked.

Certainly Bramlett confesses there were a few "why me" moments during the past few years as he had set backs after a lot of hard work rehabbing the injury. Amazingly, though, this is a young man who has handled the situation with great maturity.

“His biggest asset, whether he had the wrist injury or not, is his mental [toughness],” Stanford coach Conrad Ray says. “And that really had to hold some weight over the last couple years because he’s run the gamut of emotions. All the things that run through your mind if you’re a premier athlete being pulled away from your sport, he’s had to deal with. And he’s handled it a lot of character.”

Aside from just being happy for Bramlett, his potential return could have a huge impact on the race for the national championship this spring. The Cardinal ranks second in the Golf World/Nike Golf coaches' poll behind top-ranked Oklahoma State entering the spring despite never really getting any consistent scoring from fifth starter in their lineup. If Bramlett could fill that role, even if he is not immediately back to his All-American form, you've got to think Stanford could give OSU a run at No. 1.

“He’s got some good teammates around him,” says Ray, what with Sihwan Kim, Steve Ziegler and David Chung each having averages of 73 or better during the fall. “That’s going to relieve some of the pressure. It would be different if he was our only horse.”

The other thing that works for Bramlett is the fact that while being out of action, he could focus more on his studies ... so much so that he's going to be done with the school work toward his communications degree in March, giving him the rest of time to focus on golf as the post-season begins.

The NCAA Convention begins today in Atlanta and runs through Saturday. Unlike the last few years, the line-up of proposed legislation that would have have a direct impact on golf, at least at the Division I level, is minimal. (Division II, on the other hand, has a couple to follow, including a reduction is days of competition from 24 to 21 as well as its Life in the Balance legislation.)

That said, college golf fans might want to keep an eye on a proposal involving men's basketball that could have applications to golf down the road. Proposal 2009-100 would prohibit schools from sponsoring or hosting games or other events involving high school and club teams on campus or at regularly used off-campus facilities. The thought is that by hosting such events, the schools would have an edge with potential recruits who get to see the university and its facilities.

Should this pass, could a similar proposal happen that might apply to golf? Most notably, Oklahoma State's Karsten Creek GC hosts the Ping Invitational each fall, one of the AJGA's higher profile tournaments. Furman, Texas A&M and Texas Tech host other AJGA tournaments while the campus courses at Penn State and Duke hold IJGT tournaments. Does these programs gain an advantage in recruiting because of this? Some say yes, some say no. 

Since posting my All-Decade team here just before New Year's, I've heard from some readers regarding my choices. Surprisingly (or should I say thankfully) most thought my picks were decent. To those people, well, thanks for your support.

There was a group, however, that had some bones to pick, some even offering decent alternatives. Just a word for everybody going forward: the easiest way to pique my interest and get yourself mentioned in the blog, aside of course from bribery (just kidding!) is to actually come with some cold hard facts to sell your point. I know, I know, seems obvious, doesn't it? Yet you'd be surprised at what I get.

To show you I don't mind being second guessed, here are a few of the players I have been pitched to help "upgrade" my original selections. I'll let you be the judge on whether to vote people on or off the All-Decade Island.

The bulk of the debate centered on the men's squad. The three players that gained the most support were Kyle Stanley, Clemson; Jamie Lovemark, USC; and Alejandro Canizares, Arizona State

To compare apples to apples, here are their stats:

Kyle Stanley, Clemson, 2006-09
  2x first-team AA, 71.63 avg., 07 ACC POY, 2x NCAA runner-up

Jamie Lovemark, USC, 2006-09
   2x first-team AA, 71.51 avg., 07 NCAA medalist/POY, 4 wins

Alejandro Canizares, Arizona State, 2003-06
   2x first-team AA (2x 3rd-team), 71.46 avg., 03 NCAA medalist, 2x Pac-10 POY, 6 wins

Lets start by saying that all were top-notch players. My comment on Stanley is that as solid a career as he had, he only won twice, causing him to slip just a notch below the rest. Lovemark had an amazing freshman season, but seemed to struggle to live up to all that acclaim he good as a rookie. By the end of his junior season, he was battling an injury and his sudden departure after a season with a 73.41 average to turn pro caused him to miss the final cut.

The most intriguing argument for me is the one that's made for Canizares. In the interest of full disclosure (or to cover myself) he was the final player I cut to get down to my original list of 12.

A reader from Tempe wrote to me in defense of Canizares:

"I know you have to kick people out, so I will do it. He had as many first-team AA as Dustin Johnson and Alejandro was a four-time overall pick. He had a better stroke average (71.46 to 72.11) and was a two-time Pac-10 Player of the Year.

Also, how many freshmen won the NCAA title in the decade? I think only two (Oklahoma State's Jonathan Moore and Alejandro)

Alejandro had a better stroke average and more wins than Brock Mackenzie and a better stroke average and more wins than Troy Matteson. Below, using your format, is the comparison.

Alejandro Canizares, Arizona State, 2002-05
    2x 1st-team AA, 71.46 avg., 6 wins, two-time Pac-10 POY
Dustin Johnson, Coastal Carolina, 2003-07
    2x 1st-team AA (1x 3rd-team), 3x Big South POY, 72.11 avg.
Brock Mackenzie, Washington, 2000-04
    2x 1st-team AA (1x 2nd-team & HM), 71.65 avg., 4 wins
Troy Matteson, Georgia Tech, 1998-2003
    2x 1st-team AA (1x 3rd-team), 02 NCAA medalist, 71.91 avg., 5 wins

    
Suffice it to say, Canizares' fans have a fairly good argument.



On the women's side, the two names I heard of for further considerations were a pair of teammates at USC: Mikaela Parmlid and Dewi-Clarie Schreefel.

Again to compare apples and apples:

Mikaela Parmlid, USC, 1999-2003
  2x first-team AA, 73.99 avg., 03 NCAA medalist, 5 wins
Dewi-Claire Schreefel, USC, 2004-08
  1x first-team AA (2x 2nd-team), 74.34 avg., 06 NCAA medalist, 3 wins

For as good a player as both Parmlid and Schreefel were, neither holds the USC record for best scoring average (Candie Kung has that distinction) or the low single-season average (Irene Cho). Both are high quality players, but come up just shy of the threshold set by the other 12 on the All-Decade team.


OK ... What do you all have to say now? Am I still overlooking anybody?

With the passing of legendary BYU men's coach Karl Tucker last Friday, college golf one of the pioneers of the modern-day game.

Here's a link to a press release from the school, while the Deseret News in Provo, Utah, also had a nice tribute to the 83-year-old, who died after complications from congestive heart failure.

Suffice it to say, Tucker's resume was impressive. After taking over the Cougar program in 1961, he led them to 19 Western Athletic Conference titles, 170 team championships and 117 match-play victories. His teams posted 12 top-five finishes at the NCAA Championships, and when BYU won the title in 1981, it was the first national championship for the school in any sport.

During his GCAA Hall of Fame career, Tucker coached 69 All-Americans, 14 WAC players of the year, 13 WAC individual champions. Three of his players went on to become PGA Tour Rookie of the Year— John Fought, Pat McGowan and Keith Clearwater. He also coached the World Golf Hall of Famer Johnny Miller, two-time college player of the year Bobby Clampett (in photo with Tucker), 2003 Masters champion Mike Weir and Mike Reid, a two-time major winner on the Champions Tour.

Photo courtesy of BYU

Over the past couple of years, I've come to dread the first full week of January. It's got nothing to do with the post-Christmas blahs or a gosh-I-wish-I-had-a-few-more-days-of-vacation kind of thing. What I dislike is the fact I've got to chase all the rumors that boil up in December about various college players who have decided not to return to their respect schools for the spring semester.

Seriously, I take no pleasure in calling a college coach, chit-chatting about the holidays and then having to ask him or her the tacky but unavoidable question:

So did everybody from your team make it back to campus?

The list of players who aren't returning this time around isn't too lengthy, thankfully. Among the more notable are Jane Rah at Oklahoma State and Amelia Lewis at Florida, both of whom are leaving school to focus more on their games, and Daniela Holmqvist, who is officially transferring from Tulane (where she was Conference USA freshman of the year in 2009) to California. What was different this time, though, was that I heard from some well-placed sources that there are already a handful of players who know they're going to transfer during the summer. These players have told there coaches as much, thus setting themselves up to be competing as lame ducks for the next five-plus months, doing wonders, no doubt, for their respective teams' morale.

What's going on out there? Why does it seem like more and more players are jumping around? Holmqvist is now the third player on the Cal women's roster who transferred into the program for the 2009-10 season, joining Joanne Lee (formerly at USC) and Emily Childs (formerly at Colorado). Truth is, several top-25 programs on both the men's and women's front have transfers on their rosters, more so than I can recall in a while

In talking to various coaches at the GCAA and NGCA conventions last month in Las Vegas, I got the sense that there is a growing unrest with the present situation, where the moment a player starts to feel uncomfortable at a school, he or she is off to find a new one.

This transfer dilemma is an effect with seemingly numerous causes, most centered around the accelerated recruiting schedule that has become de rigour in Division I college golf. Long story short: more and more coaches are offering scholarships to high schoolers at an earlier and earlier age while simultaneously more and more high schoolers are making verbal commitments before they've even started their senior years—and before taking an official visit to see a school. (I'll leave it up to others to decide what begat what in this chicken-or-the-egg debate.)

What seems to be happening is that players typically now go on unofficial visits, often receive offers, then get nervous that if they don't accept something pretty quickly somebody else will take their spot (and money) and that they'll be left without a chair to sit in when the recruiting music stops. Yet with schools committing to players (and vice versa) so early, it's fostering a situation where players might be making decisions without having gathered enough information. The problem truly surfaces when, once the players are finally enrolled, they come to realize that this wasn't the place they thought it would be and that they've made a mistake.

So how to you remedy the situation? Unfortunately, it's a bit like putting a genie back in a bottle. Coaches could collectively say, "We're going to hold off on offering scholarships," but if a few begin to cave on this pledge, the proverbial floodgates will open again. Without the NCAA reviewing and revising some of its recruiting rules (i.e. allowing coaches to contact players on Jan. 1 of their junior years rather than July 1 proceeding their senior year and allowing for official visits in the spring of a high schooler's junior year), the potential for bad decisions remains.

The NCAA rule I'd like to see changed/enforced, however, the one that might address some of my concerns with the least amount of politics is the one that allows student-athletes in golf to transfer to another school without having to sit out a year in residence (schools now typically waive that requirement when releasing their student athletes. Golf should require all players to have to miss a year's competition if they decide to switch schools (as is the case in basketball and football). It would certainly have a chilling effect on the number of transfers if for no other reason than it attaches a consequence for the player to his or her action. Any leverage players currently have in the ability to threaten to transfer if something doesn't change with the way they're being treated at their original school would be greatly reduced.

I'm a believer if a player wants to transfer badly enough, given his or her situation, then he or she will be willing to sit-out the year to do so (case in point: Philip Francis, who because of Pac-10 rules on transferring to another school in the conference is out of action this season after leaving UCLA for Arizona State but was willing to do so to be closer to his family and his instructor in Scottsdale).

Meanwhile, knowing that if you do transfer--especially if you transfer from one school to another between the fall and spring semesters--you're going to have to sit out a season might cause golfers to do a little more homework as they're making their original decision in high school on where to go to college.

***********

All that said, and at the risk of being labeled a hypocrite, I am more sympathetic to the decision that Rah and Lewis made to leave school as opposed to transferring. If I have a beef with them, it's that I wish they wouldn't do it in the middle of the season, when coaches can't find somebody to replace them on their schools' rosters.

"I think college is for everyone, but I don’t think college golf is for everyone," Lewis told me over the phone when I spoke with her yesterday. That's a fair enough statement. Lewis had always been on the fence about college, but decided to give it a try after so many people she trusted were encouraging her to do so. Yet an inability to work on her game at the pace she wanted to ultimately made her rethink things.

"I told [Gator coach Jan Dowling] before the winter break that I was considering not coming back," Lewis said. "And I did some more thinking and decided I needed to make the decision to leave.

"It was hard because I love the girls on the team," she added. "We got along great. I called them [during the break] to tell them what I was doing and they support me. They want me to be happy."

The Jacksonville native, who won the Women's North and South Amateur last summer, says she intends to continue to pursue a college degree from her home while compete as an amateur in 2010.
 

Washington senior Nick Taylor often hits his driver the same 300-meter distance he will get to walk/run after being selected as an Olympic Torch Bearer for the upcoming Winter Games in Vancouver.

Still, the honor is one the Abbottsford, British Columbia, native (named Canada's top-ranked male golfer by the Royal Canadian GA the past two years) is plenty flattered by … even if he has to drive two hours from his home to the small town of Merrit, where he's scheduled to carry the torch at  7 a.m. on Feb. 7.

"It's cool," Taylor said. "I would live to run in my hometown, but I had no control over that. I guess I'll just get a track suit and then go back to sleep."

I was sad to learn Minnesota director of golf Brad James will be leaving the program at the end of the 2009-10 season, returning to his native Australia to take on the job of High Performance Director for Golf Australia and the Australian Institute of Sport. It's a prestigious post; the 35-year-old will be responsible for the oversight and management of Australia's men's and women's national teams, the country's rookie program, which develops young professionals as well as the junior development program.

Since I started working the college golf beat for Golf World in the fall of 1997, I get asked every now and then what's the best story I've ever covered. For the past seven-plus years, I've been quick with my answer because to me the choice is obvious: Minnesota's storybook victory at the 2002 NCAA Men's Championship.

Seriously, how can you top what James and his Golden Gopher squad did at Ohio State's Scarlet Course, considering the circumstances in which they did it? Minnesota's starting five were dead men walking, athletic director Mark Yodof having announced two months earlier that the school would be eliminating the program after 88 years to help offset the department's $21 million budget deficit.

In the aftermath, James, who played for the Gophers from 1993-96, worked to rally the state's loyal golf population (and the university's prominent golf alums) to try and get the school to reconsider the decision, while his players took matters into their own hands. Despite the storm clouds, the Gophers won the Big Ten title later in April. They then crafted one of the greatest comebacks in NCAA Championship history that May, vaulting from T-16 after two rounds (had there been a 36-hole cut as there had the 10 years proceeding, Minnesota wouldn't have heading back to Minneapolis) to first en route becoming the first northern school (and subsequently the last) to claim the title since 1979.

James told me that afternoon: "It's just hard to comprehend what we've done after everything that's happened. But I never doubted we could do this. None of us did. That's the reason we're here." Recall, too, he actually wasn't even the men's head coach then but rather the interim coach, thrust from his assistant's post after then coach John Means resigned the previous September.

Ultimately, Minnesota's title run saved the program (they were allowed to compete again in 2002-03 and raise funding to maintain the men's and women's teams) and James got to drop the interim tag. It also guaranteed that the NCAA Championship would NEVER AGAIN have a 36-hole cut (remember Minnesota!).

To James credit, he didn't rest on his laurels as a coach. His teams proceeded to win two more Big Ten titles and finished third and seventh at nationals in 2006 and 2007, respectfully. In 2007, he was promoted to director of golf, helping to oversee the women's program as well.

"Looking back it really is remarkable what Brad accomplished here and frankly he deserves the credit," said Minnesota athletic director Joel Maturi in a statement. "He overcame a lot during his time at the University of Minnesota to build a championship program, but most importantly I think Brad enjoyed the journey."

Not that it will get you much Brad, but so did I.

I checked out the NCAA Men's Division I Championship Handbook earlier this week (you can download a PDF version of it by clicking here) and was a little surprised to see that on page 10 it said that once the final eight teams earn spots into the match-play bracket, the lineups will be determined by Golfstat ranking. My reason being that at last month's GCAA Convention in Las Vegas, a majority of coaches in a straw-poll vote said they preferred getting to pick their own lineup (adding another element of drama and coaching to the proceedings) rather than use the Golfstat ranking, as was the case last year. Since the convention ended Dec. 9 and the handbook was posted Dec. 14, I was curious why the men's D-I golf committee went in the direction it did.

According to NCAA assistant director of championships Donnie Wagner, the language in the 2010 handbook is, roughly speaking, a placeholder until a final decision by the D-I golf committee is made during a conference call the six members will be holding later this month.