Arizona State University men's associate head coach, Thomas Sutton believes it's "better than ever" to be a top college player in the US given the rapidly-evolving and immediate opportunities at tour level.
Sutton works with Matt Thurmond on a Sun Devils team that currently contains the likes of US Amateur champion Josele Ballester, Preston Summerhays - protege of Tony Finau - and Connor Williams, who is being looked after by Phil Mickelson due to the pair's San Diego base.
The future for all three players is extremely bright, according to Sutton, who also said any leading golfer at one of the other top colleges can expect a far more seamless path to the big leagues than was true even a decade ago.
The tweaking of PGA Tour U - which began in 2020 with a Korn Ferry Tour card - has presented the top male college player with instant access to the leading American circuit since 2023, while a greater number of sponsor exemptions appear to have been made available on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour over the past few seasons.
In addition, the LIV Golf League has made no secret of its desire to attract the best young players as it aims to fuel the next generation in the PIF-backed competition. Frederik Kjettrup signed ahead of 2025 off the back of an excellent career at Florida State while fellow fresh-faced pros, Luis Masaveu and Yubin Jang also joined LIV during the off-season.
Former University of Washington coach and aspiring pro, Sutton stated that each of the various changes in college golf - from NIL deals to an increased focus on players from leading media outlets - has created a situation where good amateur golfers are fast-tracked into the pro game.
Asked if now is a good time to be a college golfer, Sutton said: "I think it's the best time for a lot of reasons. The money, the opportunities, how much we provide them with is more than we've ever done.
"But what I've seen the biggest change in is now [college] is the recruiting fields for the DP World Tour and LIV. And more than ever, I see the average fan interested in the top players. If you watch Golf Channel on the bottom of the screen, you see the top college players all day just running along in that ticker.
"These players are becoming household names. And so when they give an exemption to Luke Clanton, the PGA Tour brings in actual eye viewers because they brought in a college player.
"It's more competitive than ever in college, for sure. But if you are in college and you are having success, you're going to have more opportunities than you've ever had."
Back in October 2022, Jon Rahm called on the PGA Tour to focus on recruiting the best college players more often than they were in order to retain the top US circuit as every male golfer's primary focus when they turn pro.
He said: “My advice to the PGA Tour? Start looking at college players and offer them more than you do now. Every other major sport has a direct path to the major leagues from college except golf.”
Fast forward a few years and it appears as though the PGA Tour has taken Rahm's advice on board, although - as Sutton pointed out - so has the LIV Golf League and DP World Tour.
Sutton said: "Whereas they used to bring in the champion from 10 years ago into a pro event, now they're saying, "No, let's get the best college player because this guy will actually compete to win and it'll be a ton of stories and a lot of people talking about him."
"So, in that way, I think it's better than ever [to be a college player]. And that's thankful to the tours really because they all realize this is their lifeblood. These players, if they can get them to come to their tours, then people are going to watch it."
'The Top-10 Guys In The World Would Be Successful On Tour Right Now'
The increase in opportunities for the best college players is also, in part, seeing more outstanding results as golfers in their early 20s take to winning like a duck to water.
Nick Dunlap and Ludvig Aberg are just two examples of young men who wasted little time gaining experience and instead just claimed victories right out of the gate.
Meanwhile, 21-year-old Luke Clanton is yet to win but is on the precipice of securing his PGA Tour playing rights through PGA Tour U Accelerated while in his junior year at Florida State.
These three examples perfectly illustrate Sutton's theory that the gap between the very best college has to offer and the pro game is as small as it's ever been.
The former University of Alabama at Birmingham golfer said: "When I was in college and when I was at my first two schools (UAB and University of Washington), I thought it was a big jump [between college and the pro game], and it was because the players had to really get a lot better.
"But I believe that now, these guys that are top-10 in the world, I think they'd be successful on tour right now. They're going to have to go through and get their experiences, but on our team last year for example, one of them won on the DP World Tour - [Ryggs Johnston]. The other teammate is on the DP World Tour - [Wenyi Ding].
"A guy that left just before I got here in 2022 has his PGA Tour card, and then there's David Puig who is with LIV. So the top one or two on this team seem to always kind of make that jump. Not seamlessly. They all have to do their best to get there, but it seems to happen a lot."
While greater opportunities are clearly important for these rising talents to make their mark early on, Sutton revealed how their college environments have created something of a positive self-fulfilling prophecy.
In ASU's case at least, many of the alumni still live nearby and regularly go for rounds with the golf teams. According to Sutton, it is not uncommon to see Rahm hanging out with students in the campus kitchen or Paul Casey playing a practice round with Summerhays, for example. Nor is it unheard of for Mickelson and San Diego's Williams to have a knock together out in California.
Plus, given an increasing number of college players are going out and doing well on the three main tours before returning to school for the latest NCAA event, Sutton says his student-athletes are gaining an enormous amount of confidence from realizing that if their buddy can achieve great things on tour, so can they when their own chance comes around.
Sutton said: "I think they're as ready as ever. I mean, you see it day in day out. They get a sponsors exemption and they go do well. From our point of view, Preston Summerhays got a sponsor exemption to go play the [Dubai Desert Classic] on the DP World Tour and he came in T37th.
"He was like, "Yeah, I mean, I played well, but it wasn't like I lit it up." And so, these guys all have so much confidence that once they get out there and once they get their shot, they're going to show who they are.
"And again, I think a little part of that is they have seen tour pros and their teammates do well... So, if you come here, I mean, right now in the golf house they all live in, it's Preston Summerhays, Jose Luis Ballester, Connor Williams, and then Ryggs Johnston, who has won on the DP World Tour.
"Right before that, David Puig was living in the house. So they're literally picking these guys up from the airport that are winning on tour and they're coming to stay and live with them.
"So I think it just gives the guys that are here supreme confidence in knowing I can play with this guy and he's out there winning. So when it's my chance, I'm gonna do the same. It's not like that everywhere, but you do see a lot of young talent coming out and making the jump and it looks pretty seamless."
