How is the fall season already over?
It seems as if the 2024-25 college golf campaign started yesterday, but alas, the end of the fall season is here, and it’s time for a nearly three-month hiatus before the sport picks back up full steam in February, when teams will ramp it up for a postseason push to Omni La Costa in Carlsbad, California.
The fall was filled with numerous records going down, top players adding wins to their resumes and teams stacking hardware to their trophy cases.
Here are some of the biggest stories from men’s college golf this fall.
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Race for a PGA Tour card
The chase for a PGA Tour card is on, and it’s shaping up to be the closest one yet.
PGA Tour University has given seniors a pathway to earn a PGA Tour card directly after the NCAA Championship, meaning those ranked highly in the standings have a bit more to play for every time they tee it up. Look no further than when North Carolina’s David Ford, Arizona State’s Josele Ballester and Auburn’s Brendan Valdes played together in the same group last month at the Williams Cup.
The three are on top of the standings after the fall season, with Ford having put together a strong resume this fall. He has two wins and four top-eight finishes and paces the pack heading into the spring.
Coming to the home stretch, the trio are separated by only 65 points. When including Arizona State’s Preston Summerhays and UCLA’s Omar Morales, the top five have 83 points between them, meaning each time one of the five players tees it up from now until the NCAA Championship, every single stroke means that much more.
Who are the top teams?
Perhaps a surprise to some, but the consensus No. 1 team after the fall season is the Ole Miss Rebels.
In four tournaments, they’ve collected two wins and finishes second in the other two. Ole Miss’ head-to-head record is 50-2. As a team, the Rebels have shot at least 20-under in each tournament.
One of the teams Ole Miss loss to was Oklahoma, ranked second after the fall. The Sooners topped Ole Miss at the Valero Texas Collegiate while also taking home the title at the Ben Hogan in Fort Worth.
Last year’s national champs, Auburn, hasn’t won an event but has finished inside of the top three in all five tournaments. Last season, Auburn lost to only nine teams in stroke play all season long. This year, its head-to-head record is 46-8-2 at the season’s halfway point.
Arizona State is third in the NCAA golf rankings while LSU with new coach Jake Amos is fifth. The Tigers have two wins and a runner-up in four events.
Some familiar names have been the best players
As mentioned above, Ford and Ballester have been two of the best players to begin the season. Ford is ranked second in the NCAA golf rankings, with Ballester a spot behind. The top-ranked player is Texas’ Daniel Bennett, who has played only six rounds, the only player in the top 17 with fewer than 12 rounds this fall.
Last year’s top two players, Auburn sophomore Jackson Koivun and Florida State junior Luke Clanton, are finding their groove after incredible performances in 2023-24. Koivun won his season-opening event but hasn’t finished in the top five since.
Clanton, meanwhile, hasn’t finished worse than 15th, but his lone top-five finish came last week at the East Lake Cup, a 20-player field. He’s 51st in the NCAA golf rankings, and the Seminoles are trying to find their form after a national runner-up finish in May.
After transferring from East Tennessee State after his coach, Jake Amos, took the LSU job, Algot Kleen has been stellar this fall. One win, a runner-up finish and he’s fifth in the rankings.
The race for the Haskins Award is wide open, and the spring will be a big opportunity for a player to nab the highest honor in men’s college golf.
Build it, and they will come
College golf teams building incredible facilities is nothing new, but Alabama has set a new bar.
This fall, Alabama opened the Crimson Reserve golf training center, a facility that came at a price tag of $47 million. The indoor facility is 18,000 square feet, and houses coaches offices, workout facilities, and various areas for players, including hitting bays with swing technology, and mechanical putting greens controlled by a tablet that can be contoured different ways for slope effect.
The Crimson Tide were far from the only team to open a new facility this fall, let alone in the SEC. Vanderbilt also renovated its Golf House, that opened last month. It was an $11 million project. San Diego State also announced plans to build a $3 million facility.
In the age of NIL, plenty of college athletes are looking for all the bells and whistles when they pick a school. Programs that don’t have practice facilities are somewhat behind the 8-ball, and even those who have constructed some in the last two decades are working on upgrades to keep up.
Joining Club 60
Joonho Kim of Div. II Embry-Riddle became the19th men’s college golfer to join Club 60 with his first-round 60 at the Shark Invitational in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Oct. 7. He had 10 birdies and an eagle. A bogey on the par-4 16th was all that kept him from a 59. His 11-under round came on the 6,750-yard Grand Oaks Golf Course.
Its seems we’re closer than ever to a college golfer shooting in the 50s. Perhaps it finally happens in the spring.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Here are 5 of the biggest stories from men’s college golf this fall, including the race for a PGA Tour card
