Walk-Ons

[ouqb14]

Are walk-ons ever very successful in college golf? I'm definitely not good enough to play on scholarship but I think I have a chance to try out and walk-on at the team at the school I attend. I want to hear the community's thoughts ...

[wildcatden]

In their words: College-golf walk-ons who made it

Golf is a great meritocracy sport. If a college team even has walk-ons and you can play....well then you have a shot.

 

[BFD3]

Never heard of any of those players but apparently Nick Watney and Jason Dufner were both walkons. Also, that article had to go back 20 years plus to make up that list.

[wildcatden]

 

OP didn't ask to make the PGA Tour. OP just wanted to know if college golf could be in the cards.

[heavy_hitter]

The short answer is NO.

Schools usually don't take walk-ons unless they are preferred. In other words, you have to be invited to walk-on.

[TripleBogeysrbetter]

If you have the grades to back it up. Coaches are willing to give you a shot. They might be a team that haven't done so hot in the classroom and need studs there.

[iteachgolf]

Matt Every was a walk on and won the Ben Hogan award. Billy Horschel got basically a book scholarship. Plenty of walk ons have been extremely successful. Overwhelming majority are “preferred walk ons” meaning they were recruited but just aren’t receiving scholarship money. Very tough to be a walk on at the D1 level who wasn’t recruited to come to the school. Best option most have in those cases is finish top 5 in the State Am or qualify for US Am and then coach will likely consider you.

[tdeutmeyer]

I was a walk on I guess. I was going to a particular college anyway, so I had nothing to lose by trying. I sent the athletic director a letter by mail saying that I was going to be attending their college in the fall and would like to try out for the team. I gave him some basic info about me, my game, contact info of high school and coach. I kept it simple as I was not a great player, self taught, but could shoot in the upper 70's low 80's on any course. I just wanted to play some free golf! A couple of days went by and I received a phone call from both the director and coach and that was it. I arrived 2 weeks early, played a lot of golf, met the team, and made the traveling team after posting 4 qualifying rounds. I played 4yrs at a small private college. (1988-1992) No formal scholarship, but my financial aid package did change considerably for the better and I got to play 4yrs of golf on probably 15-20 different courses. Fun times. I got lucky as the talent is much better now.

[zdtallan]

It's really going to depend on the college you're going to attend as far as the level of competition in the sport goes. I grew up playing baseball with a guy who went to a small D2 school to play baseball, we always played golf growing up just never that serious, but he had some decent game. After his junior year of baseball he decided that he would rather play golf so he talked to the coach, had a tryout and played his next two years of eligibility on the golf team (i don't think he got money for it). Another guy I grew up with went to a smaller D1 school to play golf out of high school and played for a year before deciding he wanted to transfer to an ACC school because the major he wanted wasn't available at his previous school. He spoke with the coach, who gave him a tryout on the home course. He shot a -3 qualifier and was not offered a spot on the team. So there are a couple examples each of which just say "it depends". Give it a shot man.

[ChipNRun]

I'm a retired college business professor. Along the way I taught at an NAIA school for three years. About half our golfers were on partial scholarship, and the rest were walk-ons.

At that school, walk-ons were much more welcome if they were good students. The part-time golf coach, who was also a professor, didn't have time to worry about keeping them eligible if they forgot about the student half of student-athlete.

If you're playing golf in college, half the game is time management. If you make the travel squad, you'll miss a lot of classes especially during the spring. A student has to be able to work with professors and stay up on the school work to maintain eligibility - and eventually graduate!