2024 5count4 Year End Review
Looking Back, Looking Forward
Obviously I like to dwell on the past and if you’re reading this, clearly you do too, at least to some extent. I can’t thank each and every one of you enough for taking the time to read this weirdly niche but growing “newsletter”!
Year Two writing on college golf history has been incredibly rewarding for me, and I’m excited (and nervous) to see what Year Three has in store. This post is sort of a hub of links to things we’ve already covered in 2024 blended with aspirations for 2025.
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*NOTE: clicking underlined text provides a link directly to other posts
WOMEN’S D1 CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
The natural follow-up to last year’s focus on the history of the men’s college golf championship was to dive into the history of women’s college golf. It was really interesting to see all of the things that had to come together to make the first championship possible at Ohio State in 1941, as well as the subsequent work to revive it after WWII. There is a vibrant history prior to the NCAA takeover in 1982 which was incredibly rewarding to research. The 16 post series spanning pre-1941 to 2023 covers a great deal, yet still leaves plenty of room to explore more of the individual championships sometime soon.
TROPHIES
One of the most rewarding moments for this newsletter came with Harvard’s announcement it found the very first college golf championship trophy, the Ardsley Cup, hiding among their vast trophy collection. Early subscriber Andy Isztwan and his son Brian did some great sleuthing to help rediscover this treasure thought to be lost to time and/or tarnish! Andy’s contributions to this newsletter/research and meaning to me personally go well beyond what I can properly express, thank you Andy!!
Another wonderful trophy find came from Tulsa who confirmed they still hold the last AIAW (pre-NCAA) women’s team trophy. In some ways it’s a shame the way the AIAW era was unceremoniously ended, however women’s golf is now undoubtedly in one of the strongest positions it’s ever been.
North Texas took some amazing photos of their championship trophies earned during an epic run starting in 1949, and they were kind enough to share them with us for a post looking at the shocking interruption to their dynasty in 1953 when the USGA briefly revoked their amateur status.
We even took a peek at the nude golfer that adorned NCAA championship trophies from 1950s-80s. The figure has an interesting backstory that proved more extensive than we originally thought.
Speaking of trophies, we’re still hunting for college golf treasure. Consider this my semi-annual plea to the community to help find these lost (?) men’s championship trophies!
OTHER WRITING OPPORTUNITIES
Earlier this year I connected with former college golf assistant coach Mikkel Bjerch-Andresen who has a fantastic Substack you should subscribe to, especially if you are interested in golf data, analytics, and/or getting the College Golf Recruiting Playbook. Together, we did some data deep dives on the men’s and women’s (D1) post-season, and have recently used a combination of data, research, and Mikkel’s past experiences to look into the history of some really great college golf tournaments. Mikkel is a wonderfully insightful person, and I look forward to the opportunity for many more collaborations in 2025!
The Fall portion of the 2024-25 season brought an incredible opportunity to write for Scoreboard (powered by Clippd). I can’t tell you how excited I am about the planned content for Spring 2025, and I hope you will check out their website regularly to read the latest news while catching live college golf scores.
COACHES
We began and ended the year riding the coaching carousel where decisions to change schools had interesting effects across the landscape of college golf. Most people don’t know that legendary coach Jesse Haddock briefly left Wake Forest after the 1976 NCAA championship only to return in the middle of the 1977-78 season. It was a relatively short blip over the course of his career, but those 18 months had a significant ripple effect that led to several interesting events across 5 different teams, affecting the career of two other Hall of Fame coaches, and heated discussions regarding career moves that resulted in one lawsuit and the threat of a second. Hall of Fame Coach O.D. Vincent didn’t cause the same legal stir in his moves between Washington, UCLA, Duke, and back to Washington, however the ramifications of those job changes were no less intriguing.
Speaking of coaches, we’re working on a coaching database which, along with uncovering these ripple effects, will help flesh out more coaching trees such as the ones for Mike Holder and Dwaine Knight. I’ve long been fascinated by the concept of coaching influence from one generation to the next, and building out these coaching trees gives a cool visual aspect to how that happens in college golf. With the assistant coaching position really becoming ubiquitous in just the last 25-40 years (if we’re being generous with the term), coaching philosophies are now being spread far and wide across the college golf landscape, which is pretty neat to chart. As you can imagine these have been by far the longest posts we’ve done.
CONVERSATIONS
I shouldn’t be surprised, but one of the most unexpected pleasures I’ve had this past year is not the writing or even the research, but rather the conversations with people who have graciously given their time to discuss a wide range of topics. I’m not an overtly outgoing person by nature, but I cherish the connections made through a shared passion for some aspect of college golf and am excited at the thought of making more.
Several coaches spared me some of their valuable time and info, but in particular I’d like to thank coaches McGraw, Warren, Heppler, Fields, Calcatera, Millican, Sawaia, and Hebert! To any coaches reading this, I would very(!) much like to talk with you about your experiences and the possibility of digitizing/organizing/databasing/researching your school’s archives. There’s so much history out there hidden away, and I’d love to follow in the footsteps of NoleFan.org and StanfordMensGolf.com in bringing that to life wherever possible. In fact, the larger goal of the research behind these posts is to one day have a digital college golf museum to preserve all that we can from this painfully wonderful sport.
I got to experience first-hand how telling someone’s story can impact people. After being intrigued by the way Drake & Northwestern legend Ted Payseur kept coming up in my research, I put together a two-part series organizing all of the cool info found scattered around various places on the internet. A member of Mr. Payseur’s family happened to find one of these posts and reached out, leading to a series of conversations that have helped me better appreciate the man behind the historical figure. This historic profile deserves a follow-up post.
Another wonder group of people I’ve been fortunate to speak with is the Hiskey family. There will be a substantial post covering the Hiskey brothers - Sonny, Jim, and Babe - and their impact on college golf beyond just their time at North Texas and Houston respectively. I don’t know if the members of the Hiskey family I’ve had the distinct pleasure of ongoing conversations with would want their names published here, but suffice it to say that I appreciate each of you and hope that I do justice to your family’s legacy!
MORE FOR 2025
More historic tournament profiles like those we did for the Border Olympics and OFCC-Fighting Illini
More highlights of Atypical Trophies
More Quick 9’s on unique topics that are more par 3 sized
More strolls through the College Golf Museum
More profiles on historic All-Americans
More diving into the weeds of tournament results and data
More levels of college golf because there are incredible stories outside of D1
Maybe get around to writing that college golf book...if there’s time
Thanks again for reading! Let me know what college golf history you want to explore in 2025
What a fantastic year’s work