It’s college football rivalry week, with a few games on Friday and a giant slate of matchups set for Saturday.
Many of these games will go a long way to decide who makes up the new 12-team playoff in college football.
All of them will give one school bragging rights for the next 365 days.
Let’s take a look at some college rivalries through a golf lens, pitting would-be rivals against each other in some make-believe matches.
Arizona State at Arizona
The match that would involve the most combined wins comes from the desert, where ASU’s Phil Mickelson, a 45-time PGA Tour winner including six majors, takes on Arizona’s Jim Furyk, who won 17 times, including a major. Furyk also has a 59 and a 58 on his resume.
Notre Dame at USC
Notre Dame’s Billy Casper has 51 PGA Tour wins, including three majors. He won at least one Tour event for an amazing 16 straight seasons. USC’s Craig Stadler won 13 events, the most of any former Trojan. Both men, ironically enough, were born in San Diego.
Florida at Florida State
Going off the most PGA Tour wins, this would be Florida’s Doug Sanders (20) taking on Florida State’s Hubert Green (19), although Green does have two majors to Sanders’ zero.
Mark Calcavecchia (13) vs. Paul Azinger (12) would be a solid B match.
These schools each have a lot of golf heritage so how about a C match of Andy Bean (11) vs. Brooks Koepka (9)?
Texas at Texas A&M
Scottie Scheffler seems like he’s maybe the pick for Texas but don’t forget former Longhorn Ben Crenshaw won 19 times with two majors. On A&M’s side, it’s gotta be Bobby Nichols, a 12-time winner who survived a nasty car crash in high school as well as a lightning strike in the 1975 Western Open. Who wants to bet against Nichols?
A strong secondary match could feature Tom Kite (19) from UT. Scheffler and Jordan Spieth each have 13 Tour wins so this rivalry match could go four deep. Ryan Palmer (4) has the second-most Aggie wins after Nichols.
Georgia Tech at Georgia
David Duval has the most wins of any Georgia Tech alumnus (13) but the pick here has gotta be Bobby Jones (nine wins, 7 of which were majors). Among the many Georgia Bulldogs to have professional success, you can’t go wrong with 12-time PGA Tour winner and two-time Masters champ Bubba Watson.
This story has been updated to correct an error.
Washington at Oregon
Canadian Nick Taylor has the most Huskie wins on the PGA Tour with four vs. Peter Jacobsen, a seven-time winner who played for the Ducks.
Tennessee at Vanderbilt
Jim Gallagher Jr. won five times on the PGA Tour including the 1993 Tour Championship. Brandt Snedeker from Nashville, a nine-time winner, is the most accomplished former Commodore.
Auburn at Alabama
John Huston is a seven-time PGA Tour winner from Auburn, while Justin Thomas has 15 wins, including two PGA Championships.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: It’s rivalry week in college football. Here’s 8 imaginary matches pitting golfers against their college foes
