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FWST: Home-course advantage? Hardly as TCU has disappointing tournament at Colonial

TopFrog

Lifelong Frog
Home-course advantage? Hardly as TCU has disappointing tournament at Colonial

BY DREW DAVISON
ddavison@star-telegram.com

FORT WORTH – TCU golf coach Bill Montigel didn’t sugarcoat the Frogs’ performance at this year’s Nike Collegiate Invitational at Colonial Country Club.

TCU didn’t take advantage of local course knowledge and, outside of senior Stefano Mazzoli, struggled over three rounds. TCU finished tied for 12th in the 15-school tournament with a cumulative score of 30-over 870, 32 strokes behind winner Duke (2-under 838).

“The truth of the matter is we’ve played here so many times that I really expected us to play better than we did,” Montigel said. “I’m very disappointed. I’m very proud of Stefano. He played great and I feel like we’ve just got to get some other guys to perform at that level.

Read more at https://www.star-telegram.com/sports/college/big-12/texas-christian-university/article219383560.html
 

Limp Lizard

Full Member
Golf is one of those college sports where 95% is recruiting. You recruit a high school superstar (such as a Tiger Woods or Jordan Speith or Justin Thomas) and you will have a great NCAA player...at least for a year or two. The top teams have more than one of those guys. Very rarely do you "develop" a player like in football or basketball. What you recruit is what you see. Montigel needs to find a super recruiter type. We should be able to recruit talent with the courses our guys get to play.

Also what kind of on-campus facilities do we have for golf compared to the rest of the nation? Arrangements with swing coaches?
 

Frog79

Active Member
...Very rarely do you "develop" a player like in football or basketball. What you recruit is what you see. Montigel needs to find a super recruiter type. We should be able to recruit talent with the courses our guys get to play.

Not true. When I was in school here the best player on the team was the one guy who was a walk-on. He came in less skilled than the scholarship players, proceeded to work his butt off for 4 years, and eventually ended up on the PGA tour. You can improve a lot in an individual sport like golf over 4 years if you work at it hard enough.
 
Golf is one of those college sports where 95% is recruiting. You recruit a high school superstar (such as a Tiger Woods or Jordan Speith or Justin Thomas) and you will have a great NCAA player...at least for a year or two. The top teams have more than one of those guys. Very rarely do you "develop" a player like in football or basketball. What you recruit is what you see. Montigel needs to find a super recruiter type. We should be able to recruit talent with the courses our guys get to play.

Also what kind of on-campus facilities do we have for golf compared to the rest of the nation? Arrangements with swing coaches?
TCU is at a tremendous recruiting disadvantage because of a lack of dedicated facilities compared to other programs.

It’s true that up until the arms race started back in the early 2000s, TCU had a great recruiting pitch with access to Colonial, Mira Vista and Shady Oaks. That is no longer the case.
 

tcuball3

Ticket Exchange Pass
Has our golf program really ever met expectations? Or maybe the expectations just aren’t very high? Seems like being in the metroplex with colonial as a home course could be leveraged better
 

PO Frog

Active Member
Apparently our facilities suck and there's no available real estate to build a dedicated facility even if the desire to do so existed. Good luck recruiting against dedicated indoor/outdoor facilities strictly for the team's use like they have at successful programs.
 
Has our golf program really ever met expectations? Or maybe the expectations just aren’t very high? Seems like being in the metroplex with colonial as a home course could be leveraged better
Under Montigel, TCU has been a fixture in the Top 25 from the mid 90s until recently. We’ve rarely been a title contender, but have at least made it to the NCAA championships on numerous occasions.

As a former player who played for the previous coach, I’d say TCU has over-achieved, if anything, during his tenure.
 

flyfishingfrog

Active Member
Apparently our facilities suck and there's no available real estate to build a dedicated facility even if the desire to do so existed. Good luck recruiting against dedicated indoor/outdoor facilities strictly for the team's use like they have at successful programs.
Or we could go to a world renowned facility closer to our campus than any of the elite programs with dedicated facilities and offer to partner together by helping fund some of the thing required for additional facilities and course improvements plus provide some funds to improve existing building and an increase in maintenance budget in exchange for better access...

But that require that we expect more than just making the post season to be good enough...
 

PO Frog

Active Member
Or we could go to a world renowned facility closer to our campus than any of the elite programs with dedicated facilities and offer to partner together by helping fund some of the thing required for additional facilities and course improvements plus provide some funds to improve existing building and an increase in maintenance budget in exchange for better access...

But that require that we expect more than just making the post season to be good enough...
Assume you're referring to Colonial bit is there even any interest in that from the membership perspective? And they are going to get a Gil Hanse renovation fairly soon, so I doubt the members are going to be wanting to share limited space as is.
 

flyfishingfrog

Active Member
Assume you're referring to Colonial bit is there even any interest in that from the membership perspective? And they are going to get a Gil Hanse renovation fairly soon, so I doubt the members are going to be wanting to share limited space as is.
Well we lost several millions when the Dean and DeLuca deal went bad, spent more this year to cover the gap between the pillar sponsors and the real costs, have no time table or final plan for the Gil Hanse reno, have delayed the work to reno the club house and build the replacement building for the current club storage/former workout building, have a small indoor training facility with a single teaching pro that is great but over booked, have terribly out of date range equipment and facilities, could use TCU’s influence with the city about potential additional footprint and have suffered like everyone with royalties from lower oil/gas prices

And while there is a movement to reduce non member rounds - those tend to me problems on weekends and holidays - not during the week when the team is looking to practice/play

Guessing a well designed plan could easily benefit both groups
 
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