Golf Channel did a bit this week on the .500 rule in men's college golf -- teams must have a record of at least .500 against D1 teams to qualify for the NCAA tournament.
https://www.golfchannel.com/news/college-notebook-500-rule-really-growing-game
TCU figured in the graphic of teams near the .500 line, although the record as shown (55-42-2) didn't look borderline. That was because TCU, which has been below .500 nearly all year, finally pushed its mark above sea level by going 16-0 in an event featuring only one other P5 school.
At the semester break, the Frogs were 6-27 for the season, and it has taken a combination of solid play and smart scheduling to get over .500 for the year.
Three of the four GC talking heads railed against the rule as diluting competition. The fourth one (Damon Hack) was essentially shouted down by Ryan Lavner, who said that if small schools want to face top competition, they should host a tournament at a great venue that big schools want to play. I'd like to see the AD at a small school who would green-light budget for that.
I have no problem with the rule as encouragement for teams to include some smaller schools in tournament fields. Field sizes are limited by the number of players who can be on a course at once, and it would be easy for bigger schools to never give smaller schools a shot.
I don't at all mind having a few tournaments where the Frogs have to go up against smaller programs to "pad their record" -- they still have pressure to perform, maybe even more so in a setting like that, where a couple of bad rounds could blow their post-season chances.
It's good to see teams like Arkansas State, which have done great against lower-level competition, get a chance at Big 12 squads (though the Red Wolves got clobbered in Lake Charles). And it's good for highly-ranked smaller-school players like McNeese State's Blake Elliott to go up against other top-50 players like Stefano Mazzoli and Tech's Sandy Scott (Elliott finished T4 at -12, one back of Scott and one ahead of Mazzoli).
TCU gets plenty of chances against top competition. I don't see the point of rewarding teams with poor records on a strength-of-schedule argument. If a team were to solely schedule elite-field events and then try to defend a mediocre record with an SOS argument, who's to say they would do any better against less-elite teams?