Parity or Mediocrity?

Check out golfstat today and you will see that either parity or mediocrity has struck women's golf.  The tournament in Texas has quite a few mid-majors and even schools not considered mid-majors beating a lot of Big 12 and Big 10 schools.  The tournament in Hawaii has the same thing going on.  UC Davis is in the lead and Long Beach State and Toledo are beating Pac 10 schools.  What is going on?  Are the coaches at the big schools getting complacent?  Has foreign recruiting evened the playing fields?  If I were a kid in Sweden, I would love to go to the U of San Francisco vs. Stillwater.  I think the major conference schools should take note of the good coaching/teaching/recruiting that is going on at a lot of small schools the next time they have a hire to make.

I think it is the result of more parity in both men's and women's golf.  A quick look at the 2010 boys' commit list on the Golfweek site shows that several schools that would not necessarily be thought of as traditional golf powers have commitments from top 50 players-#8 to Cal, #12 to Liberty, #26 to Northwestern, #28 to Xavier, and so on through the list.  The same is probably true on the girls' side. A number of mid-major type schools seem to be doing a good job of getting highly ranked recruits to choose them over some of the bigger name programs, and unlike football, a couple of good recruits can quickly turn a golf program around.  It appears that some of the top recruits these days seem more willing to consider a variety of schools for whatever reason.  Perhaps related to this, I have noticed in my home state that the program that would be thought of by most as THE progam in the state and one of the top programs in the country has missed out on a number of excellent in-state players to both in state and out of state schools over the past few years, and I have even heard that in many of these cases, THE school apparently did not even bother to make any contact with, or at least did not seriously recruit, these players.  Some of these recruits quickly became All American caliber players elsewhere, while THE school has not really seriously challenged for a championship recently.  Does this reflect good recruiting efforts by the other schools or perhaps suggest that THE school has gotten a little complacent when it comes to recruiting??  Is this happening elsewhere too-perhaps some of the top dogs are relying too much on the drawing power of their names and getting out recruited by some of the mid-majors these days??  If so, that might explain why there seems to be a little more parity around college golf (excluding of course Oklahoma State, which seems at times to be ahead of everyone else right now)........ 

What is it about the Pokes that make them consistently so good?

Mikey, Why does there need to be more hands on work and coaching for a program to be successful. Not everybody wants that and some kids like it that way. Bill Montigel just won the Prestige and he is hands off, JT Higgins won the NCAA and he is hands off, Bruce Heppler is one of the most successful coaches ever out there and he is hands off and all have little or no golf background but they are all very successful.They are great coaches.   You called out Coach Fields and Coach Haack and both played college golf so they must know something about what they are doing especially UGA since they are always near the top.   Sometimes a coach gets too far down in the trenches and screws them up.....by overcoaching.    I agree Coach Mcgraw has a great team this year but its pretty easy to coach studs, but it is part of his job to get the studs there and he has done a great job of that....Lets remember that Uhlien, Tway, Hoffman, and Fowler were all AJGA All-Americans so they should be good....I am more impressed with what Coach McGraw has done with Whitekiller....who has become a heck of a player.

Not trying to start anything but I though you unjustly called out two very good guys.   In fact, after reading golfweek stories about the injuries and having to bring in a guy off campus, I think Coach Haack finishing 4th at Illesworth was pretty amazing.....that is no fluke golf course.

I say its more parity......more and more good players every year.

By the way, my Cowboys have the new Jerry Rice!!

Meaning hands on does not mean messing with the swing, because they have their own coaches usually. But, being present on the course while qualifying/practicing. Having mandatory drills on perfecting their skills....I feel UT over the last five years has had some incredible talent and not much of a showing, but with their team at the present time, I think they should be a top 5 team over the next couple years. It will be interesting to see if they can play up to their talent and I think that comes from the coaching, not overcoaching....I realize at college tournaments Fields is very involved with his team whether good or bad...now, on the other hand, I have been present at college tournaments when UGA coaching staff, once they are out of running, you see the coaching staff not even following their players, the players seem to be on their own...Yes, Haack was lucky at Brickyard because Henley shot way under par and at Illesworth, Mitchell had a very good tournament, yes he has to work much harder than usual because of injuries, so we will see just how much coaching talent he has. And Haack played college golf? I thought he did not even have his degree when he took the position at UGA and he had to finish it within a certain amount of time, in order to be coach, because it is a requirement of UGA ...now this is information from way back.
information. Any way, this is in response to majors and mid-major coaching....I think mid-major coaching has a desire to prove themselves, whereas, majors some just do not have that spark they used to....