NCAA Championship Archives - Golf Digest Middle East

Women’s college golf gets good news that comes with one small question …

Golf Digest Middle East — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 08:56:28 +0000

By Ryan Herrington
Three additional schools will have a chance to compete for the US NCAA D-I women’s title this spring at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale. On Monday, the NCAA announced it is expanding the size of the field at the American women’s national championship from 24 teams to 27 beginning in 2023.

“There is extreme importance in providing as many participation opportunities as possible for our student-athletes,” said Brad Hurlbut, director of athletics at Fairleigh Dickinson, and chair of the Division I Women’s Golf Committee, in a statement. “With an additional three teams qualifying for the finals site, up to an additional 18 deserving women’s golf student-athletes will have an opportunity to compete in the national championship finals, which is an important step for the sport of women’s golf and the championship.”

The number of schools qualifying for the NCAA women’s postseason will remain at 72, with 12 teams playing at each of six regional sites. However, by letting three more schools advance to nationals, the percentage of teams moving on from regionals will equal that of the men’s NCAA Championship (81 teams playing for 30 spots).

The tricky part, however, in expanding by only three teams is that an unequal number of schools will advance from the six regionals, with four teams moving on from three sites and five teams from the other three sites. According to the NCAA, the D-I Women’s Committee will create a “strength-of-field” metric to help determine the regional sites that receive the extra bid to the national championship. More is no doubt better in this scenario, but it comes with the potential for some controversy regarding which regionals will get the extra qualifier.

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Top-ranked Oklahoma State gets to NCAA matchplay on its home course, and now the pressure begins

Golf Digest Middle East — Tue, 29 May 2018 06:02:26 +0000

Courtesy of Oklahoma State

By Ryan Herrington
There is little doubt who’ll have the biggest cheering section on Tuesday at Karsten Creek Golf Club. As expected, host Oklahoma State easily qualified for the matchplay portion of the NCAA Championship, posting the low 72-hole score (even-par 1,142) in stroke play, much to the satisfaction of the hometown fans in Stillwater.

There’s also no doubt who’ll have the most pressure on them as well. The Cowboys have won nine team titles during the 2017-’18 season, each increasing the anticipation for what might be as the team plays for the national championship on its home course. Given their familiarity with the Tom Fazio layout, as well as the talent on the squad—Matthew Wolff and Viktor Hovland are in the running for first-team All-American honors while Austin Eckroat, Kristoffer Ventura and Zach Bauchou have all also had standout seasons—anything less than a 11th NCAA team title potentially will feel like a letdown.

Still, OSU’s road to the title won’t be easy. As their “reward” for earning the No. 1 seed, the Cowboys face the second-ranked team in the country, Texas A&M, after the Aggies just snuck through to grab the eighth and final seed.

“We’ve played with them quite a few times,” said Oklahoma State men’s coach Alan Bratton. “Obviously, I’m familiar with the university. I’m from College Station. That will be a good match-up. They’ve had a good year, and we’ll need to be on our game, but I promise you we’ll be ready.”

Meanwhile, if Oklahoma State manages to advance to Tuesday afternoon’s semifinals, it could set up arguably the most anticipated head-to-head showdown since the NCAA Championship went to match play to decide the team title in 2009. The Cowboys could play in-state rival and defending NCAA champion Oklahoma. The Sooners earned the No. 4 seed in the match-play bracket and first face off with SEC champion Auburn in the semifinals.

In the other quarterfinal match-ups for Tuesday morning in Stillwater, No. 2 seed Duke plays No. 7 seed Texas and No. 3 seed Texas Tech plays No. 6 seed Alabama.

While playing a road game by being at Karsten Creek, Oklahoma men’s coach Ryan Hybl knows he’ll also have plenty of fans traveling from Norman and providing support. Hybl acknowledged, too, that there is a little bit of relief to have gotten to this stage of the championship, given expectations for his own squad to back-up their title from a year ago.

“I’ve gotten that question a lot this week about the pressure of defending. That was a year ago. …The pressure honestly is not on us. We’re not favored here this week, and we kind of like that.”

Here’s are the pairings for all the quarterfinal matches (all times are CDT):

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