Eight
Member
TCU men drop from 27th to 34th in the latest Golfstat rankings after winning the UNCW Seahawk Intercollegiate. How does that happen? Strength of field and margin of victory. With only 2 top-50 teams in the field, TCU was expected to win comfortably. When teams ranked in the 70s, 80s and 130s stayed within 10 shots of the Frogs, the models considered them to have underperformed.
And that shows the balance required in putting together a D1 golf schedule. You need enough weak-field events to ensure you finish over .500 to qualify for the NCAA tournament, but the risk of playing poorly in those events is very high.
Clemson, the other top-50 team, finished 7th in the event and dropped from 44th to 55th. The Tigers were 46-52 after finishing last in a 12-team field at Pinehurst in early March. They cleared .500 with a 4th-place finish the following week, and their finish in Wilmington puts them at 68-61 (but any wins against non-D1 teams don't count). They have one event before the ACC tournament--a bubble team both on record and ranking.
TCU women are ranked 35th this week.
question, does the difficulty of the course factor into any of the rankings?
curious as golf is one of the few sports where the area you compete changes and in some cases big differences