[Spiny_Norman]

Makes you wonder about golf rankings, perhaps.  Given their performances on the season, it's amazing to think that FSU, Illinois or Texas--each ranked in the top five and among the top four in the stroke play competition--might be out at the end of this morning.  Casey's brother (Illinois's #2) seems to have picked the wrong week to struggle.

And further confirmation that competitive golf is, well, weird.

The rankings are substantially based on medal play tournament results.  Match play is different and can be a great equalizer.  In the 1st year of the men switching to the medal/match format (2009), the winning team Texas A&M was ranked 14th.  In 30+ years of medal play championships, all of the women's champs were in the top 10.  In the first year of the medal/match format, the new women's champ Stanford entered the tournament ranked 13th. 

Also competitive golf is weird only in that the difference between very good amateur players is not that great.  A #5 player on a team who is on his/her game can beat a #1 or #2 as we saw last week when USC's #5 soundly beat Mariah Stackhouse.  Also sometimes teams really do have a bad week.  At the regionals, LSU finished 5th and barely qualified for the NCAA finals.  They made up a 15 shot deficit in the final round and did not qualify until LSU's best player birdied his final hole and Iowa's best player bogied his final hole.  But LSU is a very good team and re-grouped.  Now they are in the national semifinals against Georgia which entered the tournament ranked 34th.

I think what we can conclude that it does take a great week of play and some amount of luck to win it all.  At the start of the tournament, all 30 teams in the field think they have a realistic chance to win it all.  How many other NCAA tournaments are so wide open?  It's been a great 2 weeks to be a golf fan.

[Spiny_Norman]

Makes you wonder about golf rankings, perhaps.  Given their performances on the season, it's amazing to think that FSU, Illinois or Texas--each ranked in the top five and among the top four in the stroke play competition--might be out at the end of this morning.  Casey's brother (Illinois's #2) seems to have picked the wrong week to struggle.

And further confirmation that competitive golf is, well, weird.

The rankings are substantially based on medal play tournament results.  Match play is different and can be a great equalizer.  In the 1st year of the men switching to the medal/match format (2009), the winning team Texas A&M was ranked 14th.  In 30+ years of medal play championships, all of the women's champs were in the top 10.  In the first year of the medal/match format, the new women's champ Stanford entered the tournament ranked 13th. 

Also competitive golf is weird only in that the difference between very good amateur players is not that great.  A #5 player on a team who is on his/her game can beat a #1 or #2 as we saw last week when USC's #5 soundly beat Mariah Stackhouse.  Also sometimes teams really do have a bad week.  At the regionals, LSU finished 5th and barely qualified for the NCAA finals.  They made up a 15 shot deficit in the final round and did not qualify until LSU's best player birdied his final hole and Iowa's best player bogied his final hole.  But LSU is a very good team and re-grouped.  Now they are in the national semifinals against Georgia which entered the tournament ranked 34th.

I think what we can conclude that it does take a great week of play and some amount of luck to win it all.  At the start of the tournament, all 30 teams in the field think they have a realistic chance to win it all.  How many other NCAA tournaments are so wide open?  It's been a great 2 weeks to be a golf fan.