Clemson coach Kelley Hester remembers a time when the NCAA Division I Women’s Championship field was selected solely by rankings. She was in college at Georgia in 1993 when it changed to regional qualifying. At first, the country was split into two regions, East and West. Then it expanded to three sites in 2001, then four in 2015 and, now, for the first time in 2022, there will be six regional tournaments.
The women’s regional setup now mirrors the men’s in the number of sites. However, six fewer women’s teams will advance to the NCAA Championship in Scottsdale, Arizona. The men and women compete in back-to-back weeks at Grayhawk Golf Club.
Why do the men get to send 30 – five teams from each site – when only 24 teams advance for the women?
“This is a passionate hill I would die on,” said Ohio State coach Lisa Strom. “We’ve been behind in opportunities for women’s sports for a long time.”
Julie Manning, chair of the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Committee, said last fall when the group took the proposal to the Championship Oversight Committee to move to six regional fields, they didn’t ask for an increase in the number teams that advance.
“I don’t know that we would’ve had the confidence that we could get them both done,” she said.
The COC approved the proposal to move to six regions and put it in place for 2022. It’s unusual, Manning said, for a proposal to be accepted and put in play in the same year. The committee scrambled to find two additional sites to host May 9-11, adding Stanford Golf Course in Stanford, California, and the Vanderbilt Legends Club in Franklin, Tennessee.
Four teams from each site will move on to Grayhawk May 20-25 for the NCAA Championship.
Manning said women’s coaches approached her at their annual meeting in Las Vegas last December and asked why they didn’t push for 30.
“In hindsight, now knowing that that just flew right through,” said Manning, “… you feel like you left something on the table that you didn’t bring up.”
Currently, there are 298 men’s Division I teams and 268 women’s Division I teams.
A breakdown of the regionals fields shows that the number of teams advancing to regional action (81 for the men and 72 for the women) is equal at 27 percent of the total number of programs.
But what’s not equal is the number of teams that advance to the national championship. Thirty teams on the men’s side equal 10 percent of all programs; and 24 on the women’s side equal 9 percent.
“The golden ticket, the holy grail of coaching golf is making it to the NCAA finals,” said Hester.
The addition of six teams equals more opportunities for college players and coaches.
Strom looks at regionals as the equivalent of the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament. The first round is equal from a percentage standpoint. But then on the road to Grayhawk, the men suddenly get more.
Shouldn’t the men’s and women’s fields in Scottsdale mirror each other in size? It can’t be a financial issue. The cost of sending six extra teams is minuscule when looking at the entirety of the NCAA budget.
If the numbers were equal at 30 teams, the women would have 11 percent of teams in Grayhawk compared to the men’s 10 percent. This seems entirely reasonable at a time when just last year women at the NCAA basketball tournament were fighting for adequate facilities.
Devon Brouse, head women’s coach at Purdue who coached on the men’s side for decades, has always believed that a 24-team setup makes for a better championship in terms of management.
“But clearly,” he said, “if the men are going to be playing with 30, the women should have 30.”
Manning said the committee has since forwarded a request to the COC to have 30 teams at the finals. The matter was discussed at the April COC meeting but tabled until the summer.
This seems like an absolute no-brainer.
“I tell our girls you fight for what you believe in,” said Strom, “and stand up for what’s right.”
There’s no good explanation for why the women should be short-changed.
