In men’s collegiate golf, national titles have been awarded since 1897, with the NCAA overseeing proceedings since 1939.
Stanford was the first men’s NCAA Division I Championship winner, and it has gone on to claim an impressive eight in the decades since, with the most recent coming in 2019 at Blessings Golf Club in Arkansas.
The university's women’s team hasn’t been as successful since its NCAA Division I Championship began in 1982, and it didn’t win its first title until 2015. It has made up for lost time since then, though.
Its second win came in 2022 - helped by future LPGA Tour star Rose Zhang, who claimed the first of two successive individual titles that year. In 2024, Stanford claimed its third team title, beating UCLA in the final. That gave the school a combined 11 titles, but it's still only joint second on the list.
The other school in that position is Oklahoma State, having claimed 11 men’s NCAA Division I Championship titles between 1963 in 2018 (its women’s program has yet to win the title, although it has been runner-up twice).
Stanford and Oklahoma State are still five short of the University of Houston, which has the most titles in the NCAA era with 16, all of them coming in the men’s championship (the women's program only began in 2013). Its first title came in 1956, and it had collected 15 more by 1985, but it has endured a drought of almost four decades since.
Nevertheless, in that glorious 29-year spell, Houston produced several players who would become successful PGA Tour pros. Alumni of the university who attended Houston during that winning era include two-time Major winner Fuzzy Zoeller, 1992 Masters champion Fred Couples and 1995 PGA Champion Steve Elkington, who helped the team to the title in 1982, 1984, and 1985.
Much of the credit for the success of the Houston Cougars goes to the man who would become known as the Father of College Golf, Dave Williams. He secured his legacy as one of the best college golf coaches of all time thanks to his time as head coach, where he led the team to all 16 titles. He left the role in 1987 and it is likely at least part of the reason why Houston has failed to secure a title in the years since.
Regardless, Williams’ legacy can be seen throughout US college golf today, including the scoring system he devised, which is used from high school level up to the NCAA Division I.
While Houston is the clear winner since the NCAA era began, even its extraordinary achievements would be eclipsed if accounting for the men’s pre-NCAA era (between 1897 and 1938). Including those years would put Yale at the top of the list, after it won 21 titles between 1897 and 1943. All but one cam in the pre-NCAA era, and all in the men’s game.
