Where college students go for golf

The conditions and course for the second California Regional Tournament were like night and day when compared to the first college golf club tournament of the season. The second regional tournament brought golfers to Indian Palms Country Club in beautiful Palm Springs, where the weather was much warmer and the course was even narrower. The first round was played on Saturday, March 2^nd on the Royal and Mountain courses. These two courses had a combined yardage of 6316 yards with a rating of 71.7 and slope 128. The weather was sunny and hot, creating a perfect golfing environment. The field was composed of 4 teams:

As a former Division 3 golfer for Amherst College, a small liberal arts school in the Western MA, I fully understand how difficult it is to score low in late March and early April when the first tournaments of the spring season typically occur. While the grass is only just starting to grow in patches and the greens are bumpier than riding on the back seat of an old school bus, what makes spring college golf most challenging is not the suspect scoring conditions, but instead, our golf games which take a little time to blossom after such a snowy, cold, and long winter.

With every PGA tour player’s success comes an extensive competitive tournament history. College golf in particular has helped sharpen the games of the world's best players to get them Tour ready. Let's take a look back and where three of the PGA Tour’s best were in their college years: (Rankings from GolfWeek)

Capitol Region 1 - Sycamore Creek Tournament Summary

The NCCGA Capitol Region hosted its first Spring Regional Tournament on February 23-24 2013 at Sycamore Creek Golf Course in Manakin-Sabot, Virginia. The early timing of the tournament made the 6,269 yard, Par 70 layout an ideal fit for a field of 76 golfers, many of whom had very little practice under their belts coming off the winter. The field teed off at 1:00 on Saturday narrowly having missed a major storm system that would have certainly wiped out play.

Texas Region 1 - The Bear Shootout Tournament Summary

The stakes were high at the first ever NCCGA Texas Regional Tournament in Waco, TX. Baylor, TCU, SMU, and Texas A & M college golf club teams arrived at Cottonwood Creek GC on February 23^rd with high hopes for the tournament and the future of the Texas Region. The weather was beautiful for round one. At 7100 yards from the tips and with the wind was blowing, Cottonwood Creek was no easy task. Nonetheless, TCU was ready to play, with their best two players firing the top individual rounds from Day 1 (Gould 76, Gilmore 77).

North Carolina State is a household name, synonymous with successful collegiate athletics, and he NC State college golf club team is no exception. Two individuals—Brandon Loughren and Josh Rackley—have sparked the growth and success of the program over the past few years, demonstrating leadership and stellar golf that epitomizes the National Collegiate Club Golf Association’s (NCCGA) mission to foster the growth of competitive non-varsity golf on campuses across the nation. Brandon Loughren, a senior, has been one of the strongest leaders of the NCCGA since 2010, when he took over as President of the team and soon thereafter the Regional Coordinator for the North Carolina Region.

It’s a tournament round and you’re off to a rough start after lipping out a four-footer for par. Only compounding the frustration, there is a multi-group back up on the next par three, the hole that always seems to slow us golfers down, and you are forced to ponder how that par putt didn’t hold the break. Instead of removing the missed putt from your memory—a skill all good golfers possess—it lingers as you wait for the groups in front of you to finish the hole. Slow play is a serious problem for beginner golfers, those playing college golf, all the way to PGA Tour players (remember Kevin Na and his trouble pulling the trigger?), and all golfers need to hold one another accountable to speed up our collective pace of play.

Taking the golf world by surprise this past November, the USGA proposed a controversial decision to prohibit anchored strokes starting in 2016. While it may surprise the recreational college golfer, many tour pros have anchored putters over the past 30 years, and thus USGA’s decision “makes sense” in that various other forms of putting—including Sam Snead’s croquet-style in the 60’s—have been banned by the USGA over time. Will the decision affect college golf?