Golfweek

In a slow, southern drawl, Page Marsh says its hard to rile up her young North Carolina State team. The way she says it, it’s hard not to believe her.

The results support the statement, too. Marsh, in her 12th year coaching the Wolfpack, will take her team to the national championship next week for the first time in program history.

Now that N.C. State has secured its place at Vanderbilt Legends Club in Franklin, Tenn., Marsh can breathe again. Through three days at the NCAA Central Regional, the Wolfpack remained firmly in the seventh spot on the leaderboard, just one spot above the magic eight that would earn a trip to the season’s grand finale. Though technically safe, Marsh said she never considered it that way until the last putt dropped.

That last putt, by the way, was a birdie at No. 18 from freshman Augusta James. It came not long after a birdie at No. 17 from sophomore Brittany Marchand. The Wolfpack ended the day two shots ahead of Arkansas, the last team to qualify for nationals from the Central Regional.

N.C. State’s roster at the national championship will consist of two freshmen ...

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – John Crooks has been coaching at Campbell University longer than most of his team has been alive. He has led the Fighting Camels (love that mascot) for 21 years, and he’s second only to Duke’s Dan Brooks in victories (64) among active college coaches.

Campbell is practically a fixture in these East Regional fields, qualifying 15 of the past 20 years. But here’s the catch: Campbell advanced to the NCAA Championship only once, in 1997.

The Camels get the most-improved award here at Penn State for dropping their score 23 strokes from the first round to the second. Campbell, the 20th seed, beat the entire field with a second-round 290 and sits tied for 10th after two rounds. The top eight advance to the national championship in two weeks at Vanderbilt Legends Club in Franklin, Tenn. The Camels are four shots out of the magic number.

Three Camels improved their scores by nine strokes. Teresa Urquizu posted yesterday’s low score (73) but was dropped today. Senior Michelle Koh turned in a bogey-free 69. Kaylin Yost birdied four consecutive holes on her front side before making double bogey on the 18th (her ninth) thanks ...

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Nicole Vandermade walked off the plane in Austin, Texas, and expected to see nothing but tumbleweeds and cowboy hats. The Canadian had never been to Texas, and though she did see her share of dinner plates and steel-toe boots, she was surprised by all the lakes and hills and people who weren’t entirely countrified.

On top of that, she liked what Martha Richards, the newly-appointed head coach at Texas, had to say.

“I kind of bought into the idea of building a program,” said Vandermade, Richards’ first recruit at Texas. Or rebuilding, in this case.

Fast forward five years to State College, Pa., where Vandermade hopes to lead the 11th-seeded Longhorns to an NCAA Championship. They’re tied for for fourth after an opening 8-over 296.

Richards has made a habit of sneaking into the championship with teams seeded outside the top eight. She has done it in three out of her first four years at Texas, most notably in 2009 with a 17th-seeded team.

“I love it when somebody tells me I can’t do something,” Richards said. “Oh, yeah; watch this.”

Vandermade must carry the bulk of the pressure this week with Madison Pressel ...

Today, 72 women’s college golf teams will play a practice round at one of three regional sites, each in hopes of being one of the 24 total squads that will earn a ticket to the NCAA Championship. There has been a change in the format at the women’s regionals, which is a step in the right direction, but it’s not a big enough step.

The format change takes place in the final round and is noticeable when looking at the tee sheet. The top 12 teams still tee off in the morning wave, and the bottom 12 tee off in the afternoon. The difference this year is that the leaders will tee off last in the morning wave. I find this interesting, because there still is the issue of the top 8 teams getting back on the bus and heading for the airport, while the bottom half of the field is still playing the final nine holes.

Weather concerns are one reason for this. But if weather is the key factor here, simply add a 36-hole cut. Teams outside the top 16 heading into the final day have never qualified anyway.

This is golf, and if the ...

When the Arizona Wildcats’ season comes to an end, the 34-year coaching career for Rick LaRose will draw to a close. It is a career that has produced many highs, including being the only coach in NCAA history to win men’s (1992) and women’s (1996) national titles.

This news came as a bit of a surprise, considering that just last weekend I witnessed LaRose working the range at the Sage Valley Junior Invitational in South Carolina. However, Arizona has had a tough go recently. The Wildcats have finished outside the top 20 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings in each of the past seven years, dipping as low as No. 64 last year. That being said, LaRose has taken his squad to the NCAA Championship in 23 of the past 25 seasons – the two misses in 2008 and 2010.

Arizona is a lock for postseason play this year, but it will be a tough task to make it to the national championship.

So where does Arizona go now?

Arizona director of athletics Greg Byrne said this in a news release announcing LaRose's retirement from golf and transition into a part-time special assistant to Byrne: “For nearly four ...

A number of years ago, before he made his way to the PGA Tour, Bubba Watson was playing the Nationwide Tour’s Rheem Classic at Hardscrabble Country Club in Fort Smith, Ark.

I happened to be at the event that week, working on a few future feature stories. During a Tuesday practice round, I was roaming the practice putting green, talking to a number of players whom I had gotten to know from their college days. Just as I was making my way across the green, heading back to the media center, I heard, “Hey, Ron.”

I stopped, turned and looked. It was Watson calling out to me.

“Don’t you want to talk to me?” I remember him saying.

I just smiled and answered jokingly, “Why would I want to talk to you?”

His reply, and one I will never forget, was, “Because I’m the best left-handed Bubba from Bagdad, Fla., in the field.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, and with an answer like that I knew I had to stop and talk to him. At the time, his claim to fame was a standout career at the University of Georgia (by way of Faulkner State Community ...

This year’s NCAA championship will mark the fourth anniversary of the addition of match play. And this year, at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, there will be another change. Coaches finally will play a role in deciding the order of their lineup for the matches.

The format change was announced this past week by the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Committee. The lineups used to be determined using the Golfstat ranking system ordering each teams players 1 through 5 and pairing them accordingly. This year lineups will be determined using the same method employed at the President’s Cup matches. The better seeded team (Team 1) - determined through the 54-hole stroke-play portion of the championship - will have the first choice of putting a player on the board for Match No. 1. The opposing team (Team 2) will then name its player for Match No. 1. Team 2 will then name its player for Match No. 2 and Team 1 will name its player for Match No. 2. The process will continue in an “S” curve until the players for all five matches are named. However, Team 1 may defer in the selection process and permit Team 2 ...

The top 5 storylines from the past week in college golf:

1. Augusta: Before Masters week officially started, some of the very best in collegiate golf were in Augusta participating in the Insperity Augusta State Invitational. Texas, the top team in the country, came out on top with a playoff victory over the host Jaguars. Birdies from Dylan Frittelli and Jordan Spieth on the second playoff hole gave the Longhorns their sixth victory this year.

While the Longhorns are certain to garner attention whenever they play this season, it’s time to talk about this year’s Augusta State squad. The Jaguars would end up second in this event against a good field and even though it was at home, they earned a little more credibility. Augusta State is now a lock for postseason play again this year with an entirely new lineup and head coach. I thought first-year head coach Kevin McPherson might have trouble even getting this team into postseason play, but now it looks like the two-time defending champs actually could advance to the NCAA finals.

2. Back on top: Texas senior Dylan Frittelli ended the fall season ranked No. 1 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings ...

This isn't the first time I've heard that the .500 Rule is being discussed more among coaches in the women's game. In men's college golf, this is the fifth year that teams have been required to have an overall won-loss head-to-head record of fifty percent or better to be eligible for postseason, but this rule has yet to find a spot on the women's side.

Of the current top 63 women's teams in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings, nine have a winning percentage of less than .500. (The top 63 are significant because 63 is this season's projected Magic Number, which is the ranking of the final at-large team to make NCAA regional play.)

• Rk. Team (W-L-T) .pct
• 28. Virginia (44-46-2) . 467%
• 31. Tulane (45-61-1) .425%
• 35. Mississippi (44-62-1) .416%
• 36. Arkansas (39-71-3) .358%
• 46. Wake Forest (33-57-6) .375%
• 48. Oregon State (41-54-1) .432%
• 49. New Mexico (50-60-1) .455%
• 52. Kent State (33-61-2) .354%
• 55. Notre Dame (37-60-3) .385%
• 61. Kennesaw State (57-59-1) .491%
• 62. Michigan (53-59-2) .474%
• 63. Coastal Carolina (33-94-3) .265%

• • •

Match Play champs

For much of the season, talk has centered around Texas being the team to beat this year ...

ORLANDO, Fla. – When Zac Zedrick took over the men’s golf program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, he knew he had signed on to become part of one of the most prestigious fraternities in college athletics.

Better known as the “Cradle of Coaches” – a nearly half-century-old moniker trademarked by the school in February – it’s a select group that includes football’s Paul Brown, Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, Weeb Ewbank, Earl “Red” Blaik and baseball’s Walter Alston, among others.

“It’s humbling,” the first-year head coach said during the Redhawks’ final round of the UCF Rio Pinar Invitational on March 20 at Rio Pinar CC.

“I knew the history of great coaches that have been at Miami, from Coach Schembechler to Coach Brown to Coach Hayes and on through the history of the athletic department. It feels good to be part of a group of coaches and staff that really care about the university.”

Miami’s reputation as the “Cradle of Coaches” began in 1959, when Miami graduates Paul Dietzel and Ara Parseghian were coaching the top two college football teams in the country: Dietzel at LSU and Parseghian at Northwestern.

The name stuck, ingraining itself into the ...

The top five stories from college golf this week.

1. Top team? What the Texas men did in the fall season - winning four consecutive events by an average of nearly 17 shots - left many believing this team to be the clear favorite in college golf. And while that still might be the case, the Longhorns have made things interesting after their first two starts of the spring season. But don’t be too quick to count out John Fields’ squad.

In Puerto Rico, the Longhorns were without Jordan Spieth, who was playing in the PGA Tour’s Northern Trust Open. And then this past week at the Southern Highlands Collegiate Masters, with Spieth back in the lineup, Texas placed sixth on a very demanding Southern Highlands layout against the deepest regular-season field to this point.

The gap now has closed, and we still could see a race to No. 1 in the rankings this spring.

2. Player of the Year race: It’s likely that this race could come down to the NCAA Championship this year. Jordan Spieth is No. 1 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings and Golfstat’s head-to-head standings, but there are a number of players on ...

It has been a number of years since I’ve been to UNLV’s tournament, the Southern Highlands Collegiate Masters, so I’m pretty excited about getting back this coming weekend.

But that excitement goes beyond simply being away and out West for a weekend. Instead, it has to do with who and what I’ll see when I get to Southern Highlands Golf Club in Las Vegas.

This event has attracted one of the strongest fields in college golf, outside of the NCAA Championship. And when the tournament kicks off on the 7,510-yard, par-72 course, it undoubtedly will feature some of the best of the best in the game this season.

“This is the No. 1-ranked tournament in all of collegiate golf, so the teams that are coming are going to be the best in the country,” said Jamie Green, head coach at Duke, which is No. 16 in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings.

Green had equally high praise for Southern Highlands, which was one of the courses used for the PGA Tour stop in Las Vegas for a number of years.

“Any place that hosts or has hosted a stop on the PGA Tour is going ...

Even after the fall season, there was no doubt in my mind that Alabama would win a tournament – maybe a few of them. Coach Jay Seawell’s Crimson Tide have too much talent not to win.

That’s why Golfweek made Alabama its preseason No. 1 team.

But no victory came in the fall. The Tide placed fourth at Carpet Capital and Olympia Fields, tied for second at their own Jerry Pate, and closed with a sixth at Isleworth.

Still, I knew it would be just a matter of time before ’Bama made its way to the winner’s circle.

That time came Tuesday – and in the impressive fashion many had expected from this solid group of players.

Leading wire-to-wire against a 15-team field that included six top-25 teams, the Tide rolled to victory lane in the Puerto Rico Classic at the par-72 River Course at Westin Rio Mar Resort.

With rounds of 276-279-279, Alabama finished at 30-under 834, 18 shots clear of runner-up Clemson.

The team total is the fifth-lowest in school history, and the 30 under ranks third in relation to par.

All five Tide players finished in the top 20, led once again by freshman Justin Thomas ...

There’s something about the Oak Hills course in San Antonio that seems to bring out the best in the Texas Tech golf team – past and present.

What that something is? Well, even Red Raiders head coach Greg Sands isn’t quite sure.

“I really can’t pinpoint the reason we’ve had success there,” Sands said after Texas Tech won its fourth consecutive – and sixth since 2001 – UTSA/Oak Hills Invitational on Feb. 14. “Maybe it’s just going to a place where we feel comfortable and knowing we’ve had success there in the past.”

With a final-round-best, 1-under-par 282, the Red Raiders, who were in third place and trailing leader Oklahoma by five shots after two rounds, finished at 7-over 859 for a three-stroke win over the Sooners.

Clement Sordet, a freshman from France, led Texas Tech’s last-day charge with a 5-under 66. He tied for first at 3-under 210 before losing medalist honors to Baylor’s Joakim Mikkelsen on the third playoff hole.

Junior Finley Ewing IV contributed a closing 70, and sophomores Logan McCracken (72) and Chandler Rusk (74) also aided the winning cause.

“To get into contention and then finish it off the ...

In the middle of Patrick Cantlay’s summer run that hoisted him into the headlines, a Twitter account popped up, purporting to belong to the amateur star. It seemed an uncharacteristic move by the quiet Cantlay. It was. The account was a fraud, and soon removed from the social-media site at the family’s request.

Cantlay, unlike many college kids, has no interest in social media. “I just like doing my own thing,” the UCLA sophomore said. “I’m fine if no one knows what I’m thinking or no one knows what I’m doing on Friday afternoon at 1:57.”

There are plenty of people interested in Cantlay’s inner-most thoughts, though. There’s one question above all the rest that they’d love to have answered: When are you turning pro?

“I’m just worrying about this week and trying to play as best I can this week,” said Cantlay, who is playing the Northern Trust Open on a sponsor exemption. “I’m an amateur this week.”

Cantlay said his father, Steve, and instructor, Jamie Mulligan, have been handling the research required before a potential leap to the pro game.

When asked how the PGA Tour’s ...