TCU Golf 2023-2024

[JogginFrog]

TCU men add a fourth signee in Aidan Dortch of Dallas, who posted 5 top-20 finishes this year in 7 starts on the AJGA circuit.

And the TCU women add their second signee in Gracie McGovern. She'll have an immediate impact.

 

[JogginFrog]

Things of TCU significance are happening at the DP World Tour's Q School, a 6-round grind with 156 players, the top 25 of whom earn their Euro Tour cards. Today marked the 4th-round cut to the top 70 and ties.

TCU thing 1: Filippo Celli has a 3-shot lead at -21, shooting 68-65-66-66. He's 11 shots clear of the mark to earn his card. He's on his way.


TCU thing 2: David Ravetto shot a 4th-round 65 to get into the top 25 (T23). Had 2 top 10 finishes a successful year on the Challenge DP World Tour and is looking to take the next step retain his card. Never met him, but watching his career, he seems as mentally tough as they come. Don't bet against him.

TCU thing 3: Current Frog Maxence Giboudot is one of 3 amateurs in the field. He made the cut with a shot to spare and at -6 is 4 shots out of the top 25. If he earns his card, he'll be one-and-done at TCU. Not rooting against him, but the Frogs will be better if he's back in Fort Worth in the spring.

Scoring: https://www.europeantour.com/dpworld-tour/final-stage-infinitum-golf-2023/leaderboard

 

[JogginFrog]

Update from DP World Tour Q School in Spain:

1. Celli with a 5th-round 70 to drop out of the lead by a shot. At least he won't be playing defensively in the final round tomorrow. I haven't been able to drum up info on the purse--payout for the top spot may be meaningful.
2. Ravetto with a 5th-round 66 to move up to T14, 3 shots inside the top 25. Huge for him.
3. Giboudot with a 5th-round 72 to drop 7 shots back of the top 25. Good for TCU, although by making the cut Max qualifies for the Challenge Tour, so it's possible that he's already moving on.

 

[JogginFrog]

Giboudot shoots a final-round 69 to finish T59. He's had a great stretch this fall. Finished T16 in the first stage in Belgium. Finished T6 in the second stage, then was one of 2 amateurs to make the cut at the final stage to earn Challenge Tour status. I suspect he'll turn pro.

Celli shoots a final-round 68 with a birdie-birdie finish to earn runner-up honors and his Euro tour card. A big step forward for him.

Ravetto posts a final-round 70 to finish 16th and retain his DP World Tour card (corrected from above). He had hovered around the cutoff to keep his card most of the season and then missed 6 cuts in a row to fall out of the top 110. Fantastic for him to come back to Q School and make it through.

 

[JogginFrog]

TCU women announced a mid-year transfer yesterday--sophomore Sophie Anand of the Bahamas. She played in 4 tournaments for Auburn last year (74.6 avg) but had trouble cracking the lineup this fall. And when the Tigers signed #6 amateur Anna Davis last month, who is the kind of player that will draw other top players, the writing may have been on the wall.

A welcome addition to a squad that badly needed depth.

 

[JogginFrog]

Recent TCU commit Gracie McGovern and her father Sean were featured last month on an Arizona golf podcast. In addition to talking about her game (strength: iron play; improving: putting, distance; weakness: wedges <50 yds) and experiences at elite events (friendly with Charley Hull & Leona Maguire), they discuss her college recruiting (TCU beat out 50 other D1 schools, including Arizona and UT) due to the family environment, coaches, warm-weather climate, and elite courses with Hogan tradition. Clip begins with that discussion.

 

[tcuwags]

Congratulations, Hayden!

 

[JogginFrog]

Shout out to Hayden Springer for opening his 2024 Tour account with a front-nine 29 at the Pete Dye Stadium Course in La Quinta. He goes on to shoot 64-70 to make the cut enter Round 3 at -10 (as did Paul Barjon with 70-64).

Those two are now at -12 and -13, which puts them well back of Nick Dunlap, the Alabama soph who is gunning to be the first amateur to win a Tour event since Phil Mickelson. He's 3 up on Justin Thomas and 5 up on Sam Burns.

Correction: The AmEx makes its cut after Round 3 due to the use of 3 courses; Barjon made the cut at -15; Springer did not after a third-round 71 left him at -11.

 

[JogginFrog]

TCU men kicked off their spring slate this week in Tucson. They played 36 on Monday and 18 yesterday. The good news is that they beat Stanford by a shot. The bad news was pretty much everything else (TCU was 17th in an 18-team field).

The desert teams (UNM, AZ, ASU) had their way in this one, so the golf course (Omni Tucson National's Catalina Course) might have had some quirk to it. Hard to know, though, because the resort's web site offers precious few photos or course info.

Hard to break down the Frogs' performance, because the tournament scoring site has incomplete and inaccurate results. College golf's move away from Golfstat continues to be a disaster. After Spikemark failed to launch, the NCAA moved to a service called Clippd for scoring and rankings. It doesn't seem to be working any better.

 

[gohornedfrogs]

TCU men kicked off their spring slate this week in Tucson. They played 36 on Monday and 18 yesterday. The good news is that they beat Stanford by a shot. The bad news was pretty much everything else (TCU was 17th in an 18-team field).

The desert teams (UNM, AZ, ASU) had their way in this one, so the golf course (Omni Tucson National's Catalina Course) might have had some quirk to it. Hard to know, though, because the resort's web site offers precious few photos or course info.

Hard to break down the Frogs' performance, because the tournament scoring site has incomplete and inaccurate results. College golf's move away from Golfstat continues to be a disaster. After Spikemark failed to launch, the NCAA moved to a service called Clippd for scoring and rankings. It doesn't seem to be working any better.

Maybe one day, we'll find which college coach (or former coach) made the money off that move away from GolfStat. What a disaster. They had a really good thing going and torpedoed it.

 

[JogginFrog]

Maybe one day, we'll find which college coach (or former coach) made the money off that move away from GolfStat. What a disaster. They had a really good thing going and torpedoed it.

That would be Derek Freeman, who parlayed his head-coaching gig at UCLA (where he won a title in '08) into a 2018 appointment to the NCAA Division I Men's Golf Committee. In early 2020, he founded Spikemark golf, and then likely made sure that Golfstat only got a one-year contract in 2022 (when Freeman's term expired), so he could make his pitch in 2023.

Then when things got rushed and a cyber attack hit, he reached out to UK-based Clippd for a lifeline. Its co-founders are a couple of Oxford guys that have no past history with U.S. college golf as far as I can tell.

Golfstat is still there but has laid off most of its staff.

That's a quick summary of a Golfweek story from late October. Spikemark is a Wyoming LLC; there's a second owner but I haven't been able to locate a name.

 

[gohornedfrogs]

That would be Derek Freeman, who parlayed his head-coaching gig at UCLA (where he won a title in '08) into a 2018 appointment to the NCAA Division I Men's Golf Committee. In early 2020, he founded Spikemark golf, and then likely made sure that Golfstat only got a one-year contract in 2022 (when Freeman's term expired), so he could make his pitch in 2023.

Then when things got rushed and a cyber attack hit, he reached out to UK-based Clippd for a lifeline. Its co-founders are a couple of Oxford guys that have no past history with U.S. college golf as far as I can tell.

Golfstat is still there but has laid off most of its staff.

That's a quick summary of a Golfweek story from late October. Spikemark is a Wyoming LLC; there's a second owner but I haven't been able to locate a name.

Ha! Now that I think of it, I read that story a while back. I'm betting he's not getting any Christmas cards from his fellow coaches.

Makes you wonder...was someone at GolfStat behind the cyber attack! We now have a corporate espionage thriller ready to go in the niche college golf scoring/stats industry! Chris Hemsworth to star in the film version. Forget Black Hat...it's Plaid Hat!

 

[mathman]

TCU men kicked off their spring slate this week in Tucson. They played 36 on Monday and 18 yesterday. The good news is that they beat Stanford by a shot. The bad news was pretty much everything else (TCU was 17th in an 18-team field).

The desert teams (UNM, AZ, ASU) had their way in this one, so the golf course (Omni Tucson National's Catalina Course) might have had some quirk to it. Hard to know, though, because the resort's web site offers precious few photos or course info.

Hard to break down the Frogs' performance, because the tournament scoring site has incomplete and inaccurate results. College golf's move away from Golfstat continues to be a disaster. After Spikemark failed to launch, the NCAA moved to a service called Clippd for scoring and rankings. It doesn't seem to be working any better.

Thanks so much for the information. Golfstat was great and I couldn't figure out what happened all the sudden that tournaments weren't listed anymore. Just checked out Clipped and you are right . Not nearly as easy to read the info. At least I can follow my team(s) now.

 

[JogginFrog]

I think we had all figured that Max Giboudot would not be returning for a second spring-only season, given that he qualified for the Euro Challenge Tour, and the coaching change, and the fact that he didn't play this week in Tucson. But the fact that he's playing in the SDC Open in South Africa this week removes all doubt. He shot a 69 in what looks like his first round as a pro. Hoping and expecting he'll do well.

 

[JogginFrog]

Tom Hoge with a T6 at Pebble Beach this weekend. He's a good horse for those courses.

Nick Dunlap, in his first start as a pro, finishes DFL...but still pockets $32,000.

 

[gohornedfrogs]

Tom Hoge with a T6 at Pebble Beach this weekend. He's a good horse for those courses.

Nick Dunlap, in his first start as a pro, finishes DFL...but still pockets $32,000.

Even if he does finish DFL in every signature event, he’ll win more money than he could possibly have collected through NIL deals. When you add the endorsement deals he’s signing, it won’t even be close. I can’t believe there were people —albeit a small number — who said he should stay in college.

He has a free three-year run this way. He wouldn’t get that if he stayed in college.

 

[JogginFrog]

TCU women are just about done with round 2 of 3 in Puerto Rico. There's no live scoring as far as I can tell, so anyone who cares deeply has to follow all the teams' social media feeds. I am not that person, but from results on GoFrogs and TCU's Twitter feed, I can tell you with moderate confidence that...

• Freshman Kirstin Angosta got what appears to be her first collegiate start and seems to be making the most of it. She shot 73 in round 1 (+2, I think) and was under par through 16 holes of round 2 (E overall).
• Angosta and Barroso Sa are among the top 20 individually.
• Frogs were 13th (of 15 teams) through round 1 but only 6 shots out of 4th with a 296, so scores are bunched. Looks like they've moved up to 10th in round 2.

 

[JogginFrog]

The women say they finished 7th in Puerto Rico, with Barroso Sa and Lau earning top 20s and Angosta a top 30 after leading the team in birdies in her first event. It's a step. Still hurting for depth.

 

[JogginFrog]

Tom Hoge having another good west coast swing--he's T6 at Riv.

 

[JogginFrog]

And David Ravetto leads by 2 with a round to play at the Challenge Tour stop in George, South Africa.

Leaderboard - Dimension Data Pro-Am 2024 - Challenge Tour

David Ravetto clinched his maiden Challenge Tour title with a two-stroke victory at the Dimension Data Pro-Am.,

www.europeantour.com

It's a pro-am played on 3 different courses. If he wins, he'll be the second former Frog to win there in 3 years, as Alexander Knappe won in 2022.