After 41 editions as a National Intercollegiate Golf Association (NAIA) event, the top men’s collegiate tournament became an NCAA contest in 1939. As for the women’s equivalent, it began 43 years later, in 1982.
Through the years, there have been many notable individual title winners, including some who were destined for greatness.
The first men’s NCAA individual title was won by Tulane University’s Vincent D’Antoni, described at the time by the New York Times as “a stocky fellow with a magnificent game around the greens.” Whatever his ability, he didn’t make it in the professional game, although many NCAA title winners who came later did.
The name of one of the individual title winners in the opening decades of the men’s NCAA Division I Golf Championship stands out a mile. In 1961, Ohio State’s Jack Nicklaus beat Purdue's Mark Darnell to the title.
The following year, Nicklaus won his first Major at the US Open and collected 17 more across a glorious career to cement his position as arguably the greatest player of all time.
Six years after Nicklaus, Colorado’s Hale Irwin won the NCAA Division I Championship title before eventually winning the US Open three times.
After him, Ben Crenshaw became the first person to win the individual title three times, between 1971 and 1973 (although he shared it with Tom Kite in 1972). He eventually won The Masters twice.
At the end of the following decade, Arizona State University’s Phil Mickelson arrived on the college scene and emulated Crenshaw’s three individual titles before winning six Majors in the professional game.
Almost inevitably, Stanford’s Tiger Woods then wrote his name into the NCAA Division I history books with victory in 1996.
Other players who would eventually have successful professional careers also took the honor, including Northwestern’s Luke Donald in 1999, University of Illinois player Thomas Pieters in 2012, California’s Max Homa the year after and SMU’s Bryson DeChambeau in 2015.
The women’s NCAA Division I Championship may have had considerably fewer editions, but some of the names of the title winners still stand out.
The first winner, in 1982, was the University of Tulsa’s Kathy Baker, and just three years later she claimed victory in the US Women’s Open.
Seven years later, San Jose State player Pat Hurst took the honors before winning the Chevron Championship (then the Nabisco Dinah Shore) in 1998. Hurst also played on five US Solheim Cup teams, winning four, while she captained the team in 2021.
In 1991, arguably the greatest women’s player of all time, Annika Sorenstam, won the NCAA title representing the University of Arizona. She eventually won 10 Majors among 97 professional victories.
Two years later, Annika’s sister Charlotta, who was with the University of Texas, won the title before embarking on a professional career that included one win on the LPGA Tour.
Another winner who would go on to great things was University of Arkansas player Stacy Lewis, who claimed the individual title in 2007, and who nowadays has two Major titles and the same number of stints as US Solheim Cup captain.
In 2022, future LPGA Tour winner, Stanford’s Rose Zhang, took the title, before becoming the first women’s player to win it twice the following year, shortly before turning professional.
Below is the full list of the men’s and women’s NCAA Division I Championship individual winners through the years.
