High School/College Golf Teams

[carnation]

Does anyone have any experience with high school or college golf? A couple of our middle school daughters have expressed interest and a coach at school told me that hundreds of women's golf scholarships go unclaimed every year due to there being not enough women golfers. Of course that interested me!

[PeppyGPhiB]

I don't really golf, but I do know that my alma mater Pepperdine has a great women's golf team!

[NUBlue&Blue]

Our girls team has to share the coach with the boys team and they kinda get the short end of the stick (club?!) We did have one girl a few years ago who was a-MAZ-ing who won state, etc. and got a full ride to college. Hubby has a classmate from HS still making good money on the LPGA tour.

It's like every sport but football, though, you really have to pursue it on your own and then you play on your high school team as a secondary thing. So if they like it....go for it! If it's like our school, they will have a chance to play a Varsity sport, earn a letter and also learn a game they can play for the rest of their lives.

I know Tech's mens team is good (or has been in the past)--not sure if they have a women's team, but....hey, you might want to think about that, too if certain things come to pass!

[FSUZeta]

fsu usually has a good golf team-strangely enough, when we lived in oklahoma, our neighbors had a daughter who had a golf scholarship to fsu-it is a small world! and as you know there is a great pi phi chapter there too(nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more)

my daughter knows some girls onthe samford golf team- i will ask her what she knows about the golf team there.

[alum]

Here are the 2 polls of the top 25 women's college golf teams: D1 (athletic scholarships possible except at Ivies) http://www.ncaa.com/golf-womens/default.aspx?id=248

I thought there would be a concisive list of colleges that have women's golf subdivided by Division but I didn't find one.

ETA: I found this that ranks about 200 women's golf teams. They don't sort by Division. http://www.golfweekrankings.com/coll...amrankings.asp

[carnation]

Originally Posted by NUBlue&Blue

I know Tech's mens team is good (or has been in the past)--not sure if they have a women's team, but....hey, you might want to think about that, too if certain things come to pass!

OK, NUBlue, you cut that out! You too, FSUZeta! Preying on my desire to have a Pi Phi daughter, shame on y'all!

Seriously, y'all have given me some good information. Alum, I never knew that all those schools had women's golf!

[Benzgirl]

The Alpha Gam chapter at a liberal arts college near me has several sisters on the golf team. They have all received some type of aid (I thought it rude to ask how much) for the sport. I agree that often financial aid for smaller sports, particularly women's sports do go unclaimed.

I would suggest starting to research Title 9, which requires Opportunity in Athletics to both sexes. Depending on how good your girls are in high school might determine what level they will play in college.

Now that I think of it, my brother was on a small golf scholarship in college, but didn't play on the college team (Ohio State turned out, well, Jack Nicklaus). My brother received it through a local foundation. The scholarship was earmarked for a golfer from within the county, that had a GPA higher than 3.5 and planned to attend OSU. He may have been the only one to qualify, for all I know.

BTW... with their interest in golf, have them consider Evans Scholars, if there is a chapter at their school. These are golf caddies that are typically on full academic scholarships. It's now a coed fraternity. Many of the Evans Scholars start as golfers but weren't top high school players, so they switched to caddying.

[greekalum0206]

Hello everyone, first time posting! But, I am such a big golfer, I had to reply to this one! I am not so sure about the statistics as to how many golf scholarships go unclaimed, but I think many may be due this type of situation: they are at expensive private schools, and the scholarship may only pay for 20% or so of the tuition. If you want to get a decent amount of financial aid, you have to be a pretty good golfer. Not sure if your daughters have experience with golf, but I have found you either have a natural talent for it or you don't. However, I definitely would encourage you to look into it, have the girls play a season, there is nothing to lose!

[Munchkin03]

I know more women with golf scholarships than men! Most seem to have played since they were little, and they're all from golf-heavy areas of the country (Florida and SoCal).


Here's a NY Times article on the divide between scholarship dreams and reality:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/sp...yt&oref=slogin

[FSUZeta]

one thing to keep in mind if considering an athletic scholarship is to see which schools will be graduating seniors and have the need for new athletes, thus have scholarships available.

[carnation]

FSUZeta, that's so true. Who knows if your schools of choice are graduating anybody at all?

And Munchkin, thank you for that link! My husband and I (both teachers) are printing off several copies. We know so many families who've spent their lives in pursuit of the dream scholarship (their kids are on 3 traveling baseball teams at once or they go to multiple sports camps year-round) and then they don't get offered any money or they're offered scholarships to awful schools they wouldn't have considered had there not been sports money.

[AK Phi Sig]

Originally Posted by alum

I thought there would be a concisive list of colleges that have women's golf subdivided by Division but I didn't find one.

A list of schools that sponsor women's golf can be found on the ncaa.org website here: http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/home?...ens/index.html

[VandalSquirrel]

The University of Idaho and Washington State University both have women's golf and Pi Beta Phi chapters.

We also have four distinct seasons which I am a big fan of.