This past weekend in West Lafayette, Indiana, at the Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex, the National Collegiate College Golf Association (NCCGA) hosted their spring nationals, which is the largest college golf tournament in the country.
The championship featured over 300 players from 39 teams and 22 individuals from a combined 55 schools, representing 29 states. According to Kris Hart, Senior Director of Nexgengolf, “Purdue is a unique and special venue because of the quality of the course, as well as the history; our 2013 (and my first championship) was hosted here.”
Coordinating a championship for over 300 players takes a lot of work and a fantastic staff. To remind readers, unlike NCAA golf, the format in NCCGA is eight count five (eight players per team compete with the low five rounds counting towards a team score). Readers should also know club golf is not intramurals and these student-athletes are pretty darn good. Students like Joey Jordan from Virginia Tech have walked on to their varsity golf team due to their strong club golf performance.
Heading into the tournament, the best-ranked team participating was from Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, with a scoring average of 72.9 followed by Arizona State (73.85 average), Florida (74.26 Average), Providence (73.55 average) and Arkansas (75.45 average) rounding out the top 5. Like the NCAA, the tournament also features an individual competition. The top five players in the NCCGA this spring include:
PLAYER NAME |
TEAM NAME |
AVG SCORE PER ROUND |
AVG DIFF PER ROUND |
Brandon Resnick |
UNLV |
67.5 |
-3.92 |
Anthony Banks |
University of Arizona |
69 |
-2.69 |
Nick Bavaro |
DePaul University (B) |
69.5 |
-2.48 |
Timothy Davis |
The University of Tennessee |
69.5 |
-1.47 |
Charles Kim |
University of Arkansas (A) |
71.5 |
-1.03 |
The action at Nationals did not disappoint as Clemson University came back from a first-round deficit to edge out the University of Notre Dame by four shots (team scores of 750 and 754 respectively). Even with the tough Saturday weather conditions, Andrew Stineman of Notre Dame was still able to fire an impressive two-day score of one under par (68-75 – 143) to take home medalist honors. Payte Owen from the University of Oklahoma made it interesting on day two, but fell short by one, carding an even-par 144.
Prior to Nationals, the parent company of NCCGA, Nextgengolf announced its acquisition by the Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA).
According to Arjun Chowdri from the PGA of America, “Nextgengolf provides authentic experiences that speak to the next generation of golfers.”
This partnership demands attention because it speaks volume about the future of college golf and opportunities for boys and girls to play in college. The NCCGA provides a unique opportunity for players who might otherwise not maturate to varsity college golf to continue playing the game they love. With the PGA and 29,000 golf professionals helping grow college golf, I am eager to watch the next chapter for college golf unfold and am confident it is going to be pretty special.
To learn more about the history of club golf and some further data behind the story, check out my article I wrote back in February 2018 titled, Why you should consider playing club golf in college.
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