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Tour Creating Feeder System To The PGA - College Golf

golfinnut

golfinnut

DANNY LE! WHAT A GUY!
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golfinnut said:
https://www.golfchannel.com/news/pg...ide-access-college-stars?utm-tags=golf1304000

So what do you think about this? PGA Tour is using the College ranks as a feeder system onto the Tour. All to help them prepare & transition to the Tour.
Click to expand...

The story reads to me like it's a plan to formalize and expand what's been going on for decades, that is elite college amateurs gaining a spot in a Tour event field.
My guess is that the basic plan is to add more collegiate players to web.com Tour event fields.
 
Interesting, but more than likely this will get handled terribly like most things.
 
I think they’re doing a huge service to college golfers but the hardest part is what the article mentioned - no team plays the same schedule. And the other thing I was thinking was that most college golf is team based whereas it’s entirely individual once you reach the pros.

Let’s say you give exemptions into tournament a, b, and c for competing in the national championships. Well that’s all how your team performs, not necessarily the best golfers.

I do like the idea of promoting kids staying in school longer. Maybe seniors who meet certain requirements get more exemptions than a junior with the same requirements and so on.

Anyways, I like this idea.


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Couple of thoughts -

The problem mentioned with the women's game is mainly due to the fact that the college golf season is split between fall and spring. If they only played in the spring, that would at least solve the issue of players leaving in the middle of the season. I know I've heard some coaches proposing this, but no idea if it's actually being looked at. And of course the inherent problem here is that golf is an outdoor sport and the prime season is summer time, when college isn't in session.

The web.com q school just concluded yesterday and if you were following it you probably noticed Braden Thornberry was playing as an amateur. I've always been a little surprised that is allowed. If he did well enough to earn status on web.com, then he was going to turn pro. If not, he's still an amateur and could just return to college golf. Great option for him of course, but it seems a little off that you're competing for status on a professional tour and allowing non-professionals to compete? I guess the new system will (hopefully) address that. I also saw one of the top players on Alabama's team turned pro. Of course he did so because the professional season will start up in 2019 around the same time as the spring college golf season, so he'd be giving up a large part of his 2019 pro season to finish out his college season.

College golf has been the typical path for players wanting to be professional golfers for a long time now. I never really thought there was any kind of problem needing resolution, other than the one I mentioned above about the inherent problem of playing a summer sport in the fall/spring. I've also read some commentary that golf really isn't a great fit as a college sport since most schools don't have (or in the case of northern schools, can't have) any "home games", the fans really can't see their teams play since they usually head down to FL/AZ/SC/CA to play in tournaments with other schools instead of playing head-to-head like other sports. But overall it really doesn't seem like there's a big problem here, I hope they don't create something worse with whatever solution they come up with.
 
jdlive said:
Couple of thoughts -

The problem mentioned with the women's game is mainly due to the fact that the college golf season is split between fall and spring. If they only played in the spring, that would at least solve the issue of players leaving in the middle of the season. I know I've heard some coaches proposing this, but no idea if it's actually being looked at. And of course the inherent problem here is that golf is an outdoor sport and the prime season is summer time, when college isn't in session.

The web.com q school just concluded yesterday and if you were following it you probably noticed Braden Thornberry was playing as an amateur. I've always been a little surprised that is allowed. If he did well enough to earn status on web.com, then he was going to turn pro. If not, he's still an amateur and could just return to college golf. Great option for him of course, but it seems a little off that you're competing for status on a professional tour and allowing non-professionals to compete? I guess the new system will (hopefully) address that. I also saw one of the top players on Alabama's team turned pro. Of course he did so because the professional season will start up in 2019 around the same time as the spring college golf season, so he'd be giving up a large part of his 2019 pro season to finish out his college season.

College golf has been the typical path for players wanting to be professional golfers for a long time now. I never really thought there was any kind of problem needing resolution, other than the one I mentioned above about the inherent problem of playing a summer sport in the fall/spring. I've also read some commentary that golf really isn't a great fit as a college sport since most schools don't have (or in the case of northern schools, can't have) any "home games", the fans really can't see their teams play since they usually head down to FL/AZ/SC/CA to play in tournaments with other schools instead of playing head-to-head like other sports. But overall it really doesn't seem like there's a big problem here, I hope they don't create something worse with whatever solution they come up with.
Click to expand...

Interesting, you would think a person would have to turn professional in order to compete at Q-school. Essentially there is nothing to lose for someone like Thornberry, just staying as an amateur was clearly the right move while trying to qualify despite the fact that he turned pro even with a T72 finish.


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