National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - News and Features

August 17, 1998

Women's golf panel proposes change in selection formula

The Division I Women's Golf Committee will recommend a change in the formula used to determine how teams are selected for the championships and voted to change the order of pairings and tee times for next year's championships.

Meeting June 22-24 in Kansas City, Missouri, the committee voted to submit a recommendation to the Championships/Competition Cabinet that would determine how the final team is selected for the championships.

Under the proposal, 10 teams from the West region and eight teams from the East region would advance to the championships finals. The final team would be selected to advance based on information from the current season that would include head-to-head competition among the 38 teams selected for the regionals, head-to-head competition against teams within each region, and an adjusted scoring average.

The committee's recommendation would weight 50 percent of those criteria on head-to-head competition among the 38 teams; 25 percent on competition across regions; and 25 percent on adjusted scoring average. The last championships berth would be awarded to the region that has the most teams ranked in the top 19 teams.

The recommendation is designed to determine regional allocations based on current information rather than information based on the previous two years of play.

The committee also voted to recommend a change in the procedure that determines regional pairings and tee times that would be based on seeding for the first two days and scoring for the final two days.

In other actions, the committee:

  • Recommended that Texas A&M University, College Station, serve as host for the 1999 West regional and that Iowa State University be moved from the Midwest to the West district.

  • Clarified the advice rule to allow face-to-face communication only.

  • Revised the uniform policy to require at least a four-inch inseam for participants who wear shorts (players violating the rule would not be allowed to participate until they are in compliance).

  • Determined each district allocation in regional play as follows: South -- 44; Midwest -- 21; Mid-Atlantic/East -- 37; West -- 46; and Far West -- 56.