college golf gets exciting

since the start of the 2011-12 season, the texas men and ucla women have set the curve in college golf. by mid-fall each had reached the top of the Golf World coaches’ polls and, until last friday at least, appeared to have set-up permanent camp, with seven and six team victories, respectively. yet at this past weekend’s big 12 and pac- 12 championships, the longhorns and bruins showed no matter how educated your guess might be, predicting college golf’s postseason is a fool’s errand. despite starting the final round at whispering pines gc outside of houston, nine strokes back of texas a&m, the longhorns took the lead on the back nine only to let the aggies reclaim it,

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a&m (above) winning its first big 12 title by three. meanwhile, at palouse ridge in pullman, wash., the bruins stumbled early and never recovered, finishing four back of california in a season-worst fourth place. how will each team respond as the ncaa women’s regional fields are announced tonight and the men’s are picked may 7? texas has the golfstat cup’s top two players in Jordan spieth and dylan frittelli; ucla has three of the top eight in erynne lee, lee lopez and tiffany lua. will these players be motivated by adversity, or will it rattle them? either way, the ncaa postseason just got a lot more interesting. —Ryan Herrington (@GWcampusinsider)