Why force two championships
into one tournament?

There are those who criticize the powers that be in men’s college golf for not leaving well enough alone when it comes to the postseason, which concludes this week at Riviera CC near Los Angeles with the 115th NCAA Championship. Since I started covering the collegiate game in 1997, I’ve seen the Division I men’s committee implement a 36-hole cut at nationals, then scrap it, try a 54-hole cut, eliminate geographic allocations for entry into regionals, create the “.500 rule” for qualifying and, most significantly, incorporate match play to determine the team champion. As the mantra goes, if change is good, then more change is better.

In the committee’s defense, though, all this tinkering has created a championship as entertaining as any in competitive golf. The 54-hole stroke-play shootout at nationals, with 30 schools fighting to earn one of the eight spots in the match-play bracket, has evolved into a three-day stress test that makes taking a biochemistry final feel like recess. And say what you will about using a format that schools rarely play during the regular season, the head-to-head showdowns match play creates have only enhanced the championship’s atmosphere.

Still, there is one more tweak I’d propose that could make the postseason even more compelling: Establish a separate stroke-play tournament to crown an individual champion.

This is not a new idea, or one without inherent impediments. The cost, in dollars and labor, to stage another championship, much less figuring out when to schedule it on a crowded calendar, are not small issues. Yet they aren’t so large as to keep from discussing its merits.

The struggle college golf faces, particularly when trying to appeal outside its fan base, is that it takes an individual sport and tries to re-engineer it into a team affair. Maybe I’ve hung around too many coaches, but I’ve bought into their recruiting pitch, appreciating the team-first philosophy they espouse and even believing (mostly) that players do defer personal glory while playing for the pride of old State U.

The problem is that the hybrid setup of the NCAA Championship undermines that notion when it tries to identify an individual winner (during the 54-hole stroke-play qualifying) while also determining a team champion. It creates a mixed message as golfers are playing for different goals that can be at odds with each other.

The last two years the individual winner—Illinois’ Scott

Ideally, 2011 champs Augusta State and LSU’s Peterson would have won separately, not in tandem.

Langley and LSU’s John Peterson—fin-
ished his round the morning of the third
day, walking off the last green to little
fanfare since it wasn’t clear whether he’d be
leading at day’s end. Meanwhile, golfers
competing in the afternoon had difficult
questions to ponder: Do I play aggressively
in an attempt to chase the individual title—and risk my team’s
chances of advancing to match play? Or do I look out for my
team and let the medalist honors slip away? Whatever the
answers, the competition becomes compromised.

The dilemma disappears with a separate individual event. Limit it to 72 players and extend it back to 72 holes ( 54 is a sore point for many). Hold it prior to the team championship at the same venue to help reduce costs. The host site would need to give up its course a little longer, but the “big event” feel of having the two consecutive tournaments would be a publicity booster.

College tennis holds separate team and individual competitions, so there is a precedent. The NCAA would restore the prestige of being the medalist, then allow the team championship to take center stage with players focused solely on competing for each other.