2025 5count4 Year In 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 THREE writing on college golf history has been incredibly rewarding for me, and I’m excited (and nervous) to see what Year FOUR has in store. This post is sort of a hub of links to things we’ve already covered in 2025 blended with aspirations for 2026.

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REGULAR SEASON TROPHIES

We began the year with the second-half of our “Atypical Trophies” series, highlighting a good bit of the unique hardware handed out in the regular season college golf tournaments. There were some pretty wild(life) ones, each telling a fun story!

• VI

• VII

• VIII

• IX

• X

D1 POSTSEASON

That inevitable march towards the postseason tournament always seems like a slow burn and then before you can fully catch your breath Regionals and NCAAs have simply raced by. Since we like to take our time and savor the history, it seemed only right to not only properly document Regionals, but also take a look at some significant championship anniversaries while dwelling on the heretofore nomadic nature of the intercollegiate golf championships.

• 2025 Regional Roundups

  • WOMEN

  • MEN

• 2024-25 Season Championship Anniversaries

• Nomadic Championship

MUSEUM PIECES

Unfortunately our passion for this sport far exceeds our budget for procuring tangible artifacts from college golf’s past. Even still, each and every piece we see pop up on eBay or the various auctions gets us excited to dive into the history:

• 1995 Arizona State Women’s Autographs

• 1937 Photo of Oakmont’s Last Intercollegiate Champ

• 1936 Intercollegiate Championship Badge Oddity

• 2005 Autographed NCAA Championship Flag

MARKING HISTORY

There are certain turning points in history which deserve their own post to reflect on not only what happened, but also the reverberating consequences. While we only dove into a few of those this past year (much more planned for 2026!) they were very significant moments:

• 1975 - NCAA August Meeting Reduces Scholarships

• 1978 - Move to DAILY 5-count-4

RECORDING HISTORY WITH JIM HISKEY

In our 2024 year end review, I mentioned the Hiskey family as being one of those sources of incredible conversations. The fruits of those talks are just now being brought to public, starting with this reposting of Jim Hiskey’s 1966 Golf Digest article which includes a wonderful reading from the author himself! I can’t describe to you how cool this is for me personally, and I’m intrigued by the further possibilities with making recordings such as this one. There is MUCH MORE history to explore with the Hiskey family - in particular brothers Sonny, Jim, and Babe - which will be published in Spring 2026!

MAUI JIM INTERCOLLEGIATE

It was my distinct pleasure to speak with a multitude of people - first and foremost Nick Brassill - while exploring the expansive history of the Maui Jim Intercollegiate. Who knew that a relatively short-lived tournament could yield so much info, and yet it is the ultimate example of all of the hard work put into many college golf tournaments every year that often goes unreported and underappreciated. My upmost thanks to everyone involved with making this post!

KARSTEN (CREEK)

Speaking of gratitude, one of the coolest golf experiences of my life was getting to visit Karsten Creek - now just Karsten - and spend an afternoon documenting all of the amazing history stored within the clubhouse. Not only was Coach Holder and the whole staff incredibly accommodating to this sicko random guy, I got to spend an unbelievable few hours walking the course and speaking with the man himself! I don’t have the proper words to express my gratitude to them or Coach Mike McGraw who helped make that experience possible, but I did find about 5,000 of them to document this shrine to college golf history. I’m not saying that my visit had anything to do with Oklahoma State winning their 12th team title a few months later...but I’m not not saying it:

OTHER WRITING OPPORTUNITIES

I have further gratitude to Dan Davies and the folks over at Scoreboard (powered by Clippd) who have continued to give me an opportunity to blend more college golf history and insight through series such as “9 Things To Know” and Performances of the Week! Hopefully we will be able to continue one or both series as there is still so much more to tell:

• Early 2025-26 Previews

• More 2025-26 Fall Previews

I also had the pleasure of continuing to write 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. We took a long look into the historic AMER ARI tournament and followed that up with a deep dive into the data which everyone is welcome to dig into as well:

PODCASTING

Coach McGraw’s podcast Better Than I Found It has been the source of many topics that we’ve explored over the past three years, so getting asked to be a guest was equal parts amazing and surreal:

We also did something of a soft launch of our own podcast, which we hope to really push further this coming year. The first couple of episodes were done using (remarkably well-done) AI “conversations” using our material as the source. As cool as these turned out, I think it might be better to get on the mic myself, maybe even with an additional host and some guests of our own??

COACHING TREE PROJECT

As discussed with Coach McGraw, the Coaching Tree Project is one that we put out to take the past Coaching Tree posts even further. This is an ongoing project which will take an incredible amount of time **but can be bolstered with the support from any and all coaches willing to participate! I urge any coaches who find this to please fill out the survey so we can help build out your tree and better tell your story:

MORE FOR 2026

Looking back is kind of our thing, but we’re also looking ahead to what’s in store for 5count4 in 2026:

• More Quick 9s and historic tournament profiles like the we did for the Sun Bowl All-America Classic

• More diving into the weeds of tournament results and data like:

  • Amer Ari

  • ANNIKA Intercollegiate

  • Darius Rucker

  • Maui Jim

  • OFCC Fighting Illini

  • and even the 2024-25 D1 Season Data

• More strolls through the College Golf Museum

• More profiles on historic All-Americans

• Maybe get around to writing that college golf book...if there’s time

  • If those lost championship trophies are found, you better believe that will become the singular focal point for 2026!

Hunting For College Golf Treasure

As a closing, I want to give one more personal and heartfelt THANK YOU to those who have supported this effort with their time, information, and even in some cases financial generosity. This is very much a nights-and-weekends passion project for me, one that without you I would not be able to continue. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll be able to turn this whole thing into a full-time job.

Thanks again for reading! Let me know what college golf history you want to explore in 2026.

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