Setup Run Amok Files: NCAA Women's Finals At Concession

As the NCAA Women's Golf Championship prepares to whittle its field from stroke play to the match play finalists (and gets Golf Channel coverage Monday-Wednesday), Ryan Lavner assesses a course setup that appears to have gotten out of hand. (17 of the 24 teams posted their worst 18-hole score of the year.)

Yes, most of the top teams will advance to match play, but in recent years the NCAA's have suffered from questionable setups (Prairie Dunes bathed in rough for the men last year) and the women facing what sounds like an excessive test at Concession has many worried about what we'll see on TV.

Women’s college golf hasn’t been on national television in years, and everyone hopes to make a good impression when the cameras start rolling for real Monday afternoon. That’s problematic now, Washington coach Mary Lou Mulflur says, because “people will see teams 40 over par in the mix, and it doesn’t make us look very good.”

“This setup is the most difficult I’ve been on,” Alabama coach Mic Potter said. “And I don’t think that’s a bad thing, as long as it doesn’t hurt the perception of our sport.”

Wake Forest Freshman Posts 67 At Riviera First Time Around

I could only take in a bit of the inaugural Northern Trust Open Collegiate Showcase Closed To The Public--make sure to hear Gary Williams nit-pick about that last part on Morning Drive--so I can't tell you all of the details of Will Zalatoris' round.

However...just to remind you how wonderful it is to be young, the freshman who hasn't been playing much in because of winter weather posted a 67 around Riviera playing the course for the first time, with alum Bill Haas and two other alums. And did it on a foggy day (adding a few hundred yards to the course) while way, way too many groups of briefcases turned the place into a 6-hour round fest.

John Dell of the Winston-Salem Journal on the first amateur qualifier in years at the event formerly known as the Los Angeles Open.

Zalatoris, the winner of the U.S. Junior Amateur last summer, had a solid fall season for the Deacons. He is part of a Deacons’ team that is ranked in the top 10 by Golfweek heading into the spring.

“I’m excited,” said Zalatoris. “I’m really not even nervous about it. I’m only 18 and I’m learning. I’m enjoying the moment for sure. I played with Bill Haas today, so it was so cool getting advice from him. It’s crazy fun. I’m just going to enjoy myself and be in the moment. I’m here to play golf, not think about winning the tournament. It’s my first PGA Tour event, so I’ll see how my game stands up and we’ll go from there.”

In the group best ball portion of the proceedings, Will Gray reports that Oregon's ringers were just one shot better than A&M's.

In an unprecedented event, college players teamed with one professional and two amateurs from their university. While the collegians played their own ball in a de facto 14-for-1 qualifier, the other three players in each group played a best-ball tournament where a $50,000 donation was awarded for first place. The Oregon team led by Casey Martin took top honors, defeating Ryan Palmer's Texas A&M squad by one shot.

Golf Channel Prez On Ratings, More College Golf & Protracer

Golfweek's Martin Kaufman sits Golf Channel President Mike McCarley down for a three-part interview as part of the channel's 20th anniversary celebration. Part one is here, part two and part three.

Most interesting were his comments on ratings and Tiger in 2014.

GWK:Tiger Woods has been the big ratings driver. How do you feel about golf as we’re beginning to approach the post-Tiger era.

McCarley: This year was a great example. Tiger was out for basically his entire season, and for Golf Channel, the rating for the year was exactly the same as it was last year, which was the best year in the history of the network. That’s a testament to a lot of things. There’s a lot of programming and production changes and improvements that have been made that are reflected in those numbers. And two, there are a lot of things in the game that are working well. The LPGA had a terrific year. There are things like the Drive, Chip & Putt, which was new. The NCAA Championships were back on TV. The “Arnie” documentary (aired).

We had the highest-rated April in the history of the network, and there was no Tiger in April at all.

McCarley explains the channel's interest in college golf after years of not showing much:

One area where we’ll focus more because it’s an important piece of the fabric of the game is youth. So what we did this year with the NCAA (Championships) got a lot of people’s attentions, we saw a really nice lift in ratings, but more importantly we introduced the stars of the professional tours to the audience at a younger age. And hopefully that will start to make those kids more recognizable, so they . . . arrive on the professional scene with more cachet. I think college golf has been an overlooked and under-covered part of the game, and a lot of that is on us. We’re diving in and the response we’ve gotten from both the college golf community, the professional tours and the industry as a whole has been really positive.

The other topic of interest for those who (like me) want more Protracer will get it in 2015.

I think Protracer has been terrific, and we’re going to have Protracer at nearly 40 events this year – not only using it in tournament coverage but in our news coverage. One of the most interesting news shows we had (in 2014) was one of the pregame shows from Doral when Tiger was on the range and we had Protracer, and you were seeing the ball go left and right, and really didn’t know what was going on with this guy. Later that day, he had to get out of the event because of his back. There’s something weirdly mesmerizing about watching the path of the ball flight, especially when the players are on the range and are working on things. And there will be more things like that.