Auburn coach Kim Evans hopes to make the drive to Athens, Ga., to watch her Tigers compete in this week’s NCAA Championship before her months-long chemo treatment begins. Student assistant coach Danielle Downey is at the helm at the University of Georgia’s Golf Course, where the Tigers struggled on Day 1. Players are wearing teal ribbons in honor of Evans’ fight with ovarian cancer.

“My urge to be there and run around that golf course is so big,” said Evans. “These next few months are devoted to me getting healthy and fighting this fight.

“It’s bittersweet.”

Evans is self-medicating with belly laughs from “Duck Dynasty,” the popular A&E reality series, before chemo starts.

She was diagnosed with a rare form of stage 2 of ovarian cancer the week of NCAA Regionals – which Auburn hosted – and cheered from the sidelines as her team finished eighth to advance.

At its grassroots level, golf is a sport based on wagering – for a soda, for a dollar or, in a tournament setting, for a trophy or a gift certificate. Betting is a large part of country-club culture, and a recent NCAA survey shows that also is the case among college golfers.

The NCAA released a report this month from a quadrennial survey of member institutions regarding gambling behaviors among student-athletes. The total number of athletes – male and female – who report wagering on sports has decreased or remained stagnant in all three NCAA divisions since the 2008 study. Men’s golf, however, stands out at every level – and not for positive reasons.

According to the survey findings, 21.3 percent of Division I men’s golfers reported wagering on sports, a violation of NCAA rules, at least once a month. That number is more than twice as high as any of the other 10 Division I men’s programs surveyed. At the Division II and III levels, men’s golf also leads in sports wagering. And while wagering by athletes in other sports is going down, it is rising among male golfers. When the three divisions are combined, the percentage of ...

Detroit has entered the bonus period. With nine victories so far this season and Horizon League Championship rings on the way, anything else that happens this spring is only icing on the cake.

“That’s the tournament where, when we think about it, everything we do is, ‘Do this for the Horizon League,’ ” said junior Lindsey Lammers, Detroit’s leading scorer.

The Titans accomplished the unthinkable April 28 by earning a ninth season victory at the conference championship, their 11th start this season. That victory total ties the total number of team titles Detroit has won since the program’s inception in 2005. Head coach Terri Anthony-Ryan has been the only coach.

The 1994-95 Arizona State team that won 10 times in a season, ending with the NCAA Championship, is thought to hold the women’s record for most victories in a season.

Detroit’s success this season is mind-numbing. But as you trace your way through the Titans’ results, the MAC Preview, this team’s third start of the season, seems wildly out of place. It’s not only the one tournament out of 11 that resulted in something less than a runner-up finish, but the Titans finished last ...

The number of teams that advanced to the national championship each year from outside the top eight seeds is listed below:

2001 – 6

2002 – 1

2003 – 6

2004 – 7

2005 – 6

2006 – 5

2007 – 3

2008 – 7

2009 – 7

2010 – 8

2011 – 8

2012 – 7

Women’s regional play begins May 9 at three sites across the country. Here are some random thoughts heading into postseason:

Sure winning is important, but that has never been the point of a regional. Regionals are a qualifier for the national championship, so finishing in the top eight and advancing to the grand finale is the focus this week. For many teams, that is the goal each year: Earn a spot in the NCAA Championship. Only a few teams have a shot at winning the title, but advancing to the finals is is what most programs consider to be a successful year.

Speaking of winning the title, the eventual NCAA champion has won the regional title seven times in the past 11 years. There is certainly some stock in winning a regional. Odds are a regional winner will win the championship this year.

That brings us to regional victories. Since the NCAA went to ...

The St. Edward's men’s golf team opened its trip to DuPont, Wash., for the NCAA South Central/West Regional with a sleepy Sunday morning in the Northwest. While players stayed in bed, however, the coaches were getting a look at the countryside. Head coach Todd Ohlmeyer and assistant coach Chris Massoletti toed the line at the nearby Tacoma City Half Marathon at 7 a.m. on May 5, a race for which they’d signed up just eights days earlier.

“It wasn’t something we had been training for for awhile,” said Ohlmeyer, 38. They received the regional bid on April 26, which prompted Ohlmeyer to do a quick internet search for a nearby race. They registered the next day.

Ohlmeyer and Massoletti, 28, begin most days with a run, either before or after the team workout. St. Edward's, a Division II school in Austin, Texas, has no golf-specific trainer, but Ohlmeyer’s fitness knowledge has been put to good use. The team works out together three days each week.

The Tacoma Half marked Ohlmeyer’s eighth half marathon. He ran the 13.1 miles, along Puget Sound, in an hour and 36 minutes, and finished 22nd ...

The Annika Intercollegiate, a new college golf tournament co-founded by the Annika Foundation and Golfweek, will be held Sept. 27-30, 2014 at Reunion Resort near Orlando, Fla.

The 54-hole, stroke-play event will take place on Reunion’s Watson Course and feature 12 teams from the top Division I women’s programs.

Also scheduled for the tournament weekend is a gala reception during which Annika Sorenstam, who retired in 2008 with 72 LPGA victories, will present the inaugural Annika Award to the nation’s best female player in college golf.

The recently announced Annika Award is the female equivalent of the Haskins Award, which for 42 years has been given to the most outstanding Division I male golfer. Selection is governed by the Haskins Commission of Columbus, Ga., which will oversee the vote of players, coaches and media for the Haskins and Annika awards.

Georgia's T.J. Mitchell and Keith Mitchell share a last name (but no relation). Now they'll share a place in the field of next week's stop on the Web.com Tour. The Stadion Classic at UGA, which will be played May 2-5 at the UGA Golf Course in Athens, Ga., offers sponsor exemptions to the two Bulldogs with the team's lowest scoring averages.

Russell Henley used one of those exemptions to win the 2011 Stadion and become just the second amateur to win on the Web.com Tour.

T.J. Mitchell, a senior from Albany, Ga., leads the Bulldogs with a scoring average of 72.07. The Bulldogs’ team captain for the second straight year, Mitchell opened the season with a second-place finish in the Carpet Capital Collegiate Classic. He has four additional top-10s this season.

“I am thankful for the chance to play in the Stadion Classic,” T.J. Mitchell said. “Watching Russell, Harris (English), Nick (Reach) and Brian (Harman) the last few years and then talking to them afterward, I could tell that it meant the world to them to have a chance like that. We all have aspirations to be professional golfers, and ...

ORLANDO, Fla. – To hear the girls from Louisville tell it, the addition of a national-championship trophy can really give a boost to the rest of a school’s athletic department. That said, Louisville’s new men’s basketball title has been good news for the rest of campus.

“After we won the championship game, campus went absolutely crazy,” Louisville sophomore Emily Haas remembers. “It’s really fun to be a part of that.”

Now Haas and her women’s golf team are concentrating on earning a Big East Conference championship title and the automatic qualifier into NCAA regional play that comes with it.

Haas remembers watching the men’s national championship game with her teammates. On Sunday, she was instrumental in the Cardinals’ climb to the top of the Big East leaderboard. Haas, who lost a playoff for individual honors at Reunion Resort’s Watson Course a year ago, posted a first-round even-par 72 in drizzly conditions. The team came in at 1-under 287, seven shots ahead of Notre Dame.

“Our back is against the wall a little bit,” head coach Courtney Trimble said of the conference championship. “We basically have to win to make it to the postseason.”

Louisville ...

St. Mary’s (Calif.) became the first men’s Division I team to punch its ticket into this year’s NCAA post-season when it captured the West Coast Conference Championship, April 17, at Gold Mountain Golf Club in Bremerton, Wash.

In gaining the league’s automatic qualifier into the NCAA regionals, the Gaels survived a late charge from San Francisco and won its second consecutive WCC title for the first time in school history.

With a closing 4-over-par 292, St. Mary’s finished two strokes better than San Francisco while Brigham Young, San Diego and Gonzaga tied for third, eight shots back.

“I’ve said all season the best thing about this team is the depth,” said St. Mary’s coach Scott Hardy, now in his 12th season at the Gaels’ helm. “That certainly proved the case (at WCC Championship) as everyone contributed.”

Leading the way to the championship title for the Gaels were senior Ben Geyer and sophomore Jonathan De Los Reyes, both finishing at 1-over 217 and tying for seventh. Senior Mac McClung tied for 11th at 3 over, while junior Alex Bungert tied for 18th at 6 over. Junior Dalan Refiogiu placed 22nd at 8 over.

Geyer ...

While his players enjoy their time at Augusta National on Monday, Augusta State head coach Kevin McPherson will be hard at work. He has an important task: try to find a one-day event that the Jaguars can play in order to get their record above .500 and become eligible for an NCAA postseason bid.

Augusta State is a program defined by its postseason success. The Jaguars won NCAA titles in 2010 and 2011, the first team to win consecutive championships since Houston in 1984 and 1985. Augusta State has a losing head-to-head record this season and no events remaining on its schedule, leaving it in danger of missing NCAA regional play.

The Jaguars entered their own Augusta State Invitational at No. 58 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings. That ranking, easily good enough to earn a postseason bid, was expected to improve after the team finished second to No. 4 Texas at the Augusta State Invitational. Augusta State held a 62-66-1 record after its home event and scheduled season finale.

The Jaguars do have one day of regular-season competition remaining, though. NCAA rules allow golf teams to compete 24 days per season; Augusta State has only played 23 days because ...

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. – Robert Meadow was reaching for water bottles after carting his daughter Stephanie’s crimson Alabama team bag off the Dinah Shore Tournament Course on Thursday. It was a sneaky hot day in the desert for the Ulsterman, who has donned the white caddie jumpsuit this week at the Kraft.

Meadow, a junior on Alabama’s team and Golfweek’s No. 4-ranked player in the country, hasn’t played a tournament in the desert since junior golf. She was fourth at the 2010 AJGA Thunderbird International at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“It’s very tough; greens are firm,” Meadow said of the course. “You kind of just shoot at the pin and fire.”

Starting on the back, Meadow double-bogeyed No. 13 and bogeyed No. 15. She had three birdies on the front to get to 1-over 73 for the day.

Meadow attended a three-day Vision54 camp in January, and has kept in touch with co-founders Pia Nilsson and Lynn Mariott since. They waited for her off the ninth green on Thursday. This week, they have Meadow concentrating on decreasing the tension in her upper body.

“Their scope of things is so big,” Meadow said. “It’s ...

Steven Fox is in good form in advance of his Masters appearance. The U.S. Amateur champion finished second Tuesday at the BancorpSouth Intercollegiate, matching his best finish of the season.

Fox, a senior for Chattanooga, shot 8-under 208 (69-69-70) at Reunion Golf and Country Club in Madison, Miss., to finish two shots behind Central Arkansas’ James Newton, who followed consecutive 67s with a final-round 72. Fox matched his low 54-hole total of the season.

He was coming off a 63rd-place finish in his previous college start, at the Auburn Tiger Shootout, and a last-place finish at the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, where he shot 78-81. He missed the cut in his other PGA Tour start in 2013, shooting 70-78 to miss the cut by five shots at the Farmers Insurance Open.

“I struck the ball solid, putting was streaky, but I thought going into the week that I was ready to go, and I just didn’t play anywhere near where I wanted to,” Fox said after the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He began working with swing instructor Brad Rose earlier this year. Rose also is the instructor for two-time PGA Tour winner Scott Stallings.

Fox will face ...

TCU freshman Paul Barjon is from Nournea Cedex, New Caledonia.

You may be asking yourself . . . Where?

It is considered a French province, although New Caledonia is located in the Pacific.

Still not sure?

How about just to the east of Australia, and just above New Zealand.

There you go.

When he lived in New Caledonia, Barjon played on only three golf courses growing up.

Now, Barjon lives in Nice, France, so he can travel and play in the top European tournaments.

Adding to his career win list, Barjon won his first collegiate event March 30 at the U.S. Intercollegiate at Stanford Golf Course. He shot two straight rounds of 66, in the first and second round, and finished with a 3-under 67 for a three-shot victory over Stanford’s Patrick Rodgers.

“I played really well, and it was mostly because of my putting,” Barjon said. “During my last round, I had a lot of 12-15 foot putts. And the up and down I had on No. 15 for birdie, really helped me win.”

He and Rodgers were tied heading into the final day.

“It feels pretty good (to get my first win)” Barjon said. “It’s just another step ...

Senior Tyler Raber figures to play a key role for UC Davis as it tries for a third straight Big West Championship later this month.

And if the Aggies can get a performance out of Raber similar to the one he showcased at the Stanford U.S. Intercollegiate, three in a row could go from being a good possibility to a safe bet.

Raber shot a 5-under 65 in the final round March 30 to cap off his best individual finish of the season, finishing third, five shots back of winner Paul Barjon of TCU and two back of runner-up Patrick Rodgers of Stanford.

“Tyler Raber had an amazing tournament,” UC Davis coach Cy Williams said. “It was a really strong, national field and he crushed it.”

He beat notables Andrew Yun and David Boote of Stanford, Julien Brun and Pontus Gad of TCU, Anthony Paolucci and Yi Keun Chang of USC, and St. Mary’s Ben Geyer – all while helping UC Davis to a fifth-place showing, its most impressive team finish of the season. The Aggies, ranked No. 64 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings, bested a handful of higher-ranked teams – including No. 10 USC, No. 31 Northwestern and ...

1. AUSTIN PEAY'S BEST WIN EVER? Austin Peay has won a few Ohio Valley Conference titles, which certainly are at the top of the list in terms of notable wins in program history. However, the Governors’ victory at the Memphis Intercollegiate on March 26 might be the biggest in program history. Senior Dustin Korte won individual medalist honors as Austin Peay, ranked No. 103 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings, topped a field that included No. 25 Texas Tech and three teams in the top 50. The victory was Austin Peay’s fourth this season and will likely make them the favorite to win the OVC this spring.

2. TIDE LINGER IN BACKGROUND: Normally, Alabama would figure prominently into college golf conversations this time of year. This year, however, California has stolen some of the spotlight from Jay Seawell’s team, largely because the Golden Bears have won eight of nine events this year. The Crimson Tide have won half of their starts this year and haven’t gotten much attention for it, but that could change during the next few weeks. With four players ranked in the top 16, this squad appears to be peaking at the right ...