The Division III Women’s Golf Committee is asking the Division III Championships Committee to consider “relaxing” contest and participant minimums for automatic qualification to help the sport work through a numbers game.

Committee members at their recent annual meeting acknowledged a number of Division III programs struggling to compete in at least six tournaments with five golfers for postseason selection purposes. That in turn has affected conferences’ ability to demonstrate seven members that meet those requirements to retain the league’s AQ.

To mitigate the concern, the women’s golf committee is proposing that teams competing with four golfers be able to count those contests to meet requirements.

“There seem to be more issues at the Division III level that affect teams’ ability to maintain a roster of at least five golfers than at other divisions,” said Mike Wagner, associate athletics director at Illinois Wesleyan and chair of the women’s golf committee.

Wagner noted a number of cases in which teams lose members during the year either to injury or to study-abroad programs and don’t have the depth to replenish the roster. Multisport athletes also are common in Division III, which means a student-athlete might play golf in the fall before switching to softball or lacrosse in the spring and thus compromise the team’s ability to field a roster of five for spring contest dates.

The division is in the third year of a “grace period” for conferences that do not meet sponsorship minimums to retain their AQ, so the golf committee is looking for relief by this fall to remedy the situation.

“There is a sense of urgency about this,” Wagner said.

He said the committee is aware that some people are reluctant to accept four as a minimum roster number. In fact, when the committee considered the possibility a few years ago, members thought it may have a negative impact on participation overall. But Wagner said given the most recent circumstances, relaxing the current standard may actually have the effect of growing the game.

“No coach wants only four golfers since that puts the team at a disadvantage,” he said. “If one golfer has a bad day, it affects the whole team (in the play five/count four scoring model),” he said. “But in some cases they end up with four for reasons that are beyond their control.

“And if five is the minimum, then those who can’t get to five may not try very hard to get to four. So in a way this may actually work to spur participation. There still would be a competitive incentive for coaches to get to five, but they wouldn’t be punished – nor would their conferences – if they have only four.”

The Division III Championships Committee plans to discuss the idea during an August 18 conference call. Wagner said the committee will continue to talk with constituents for additional feedback as well.

Walk-throughs

In other action at the committee’s annual meeting, members proposed a change in the practice rounds to relieve pressure on institutional budgets without compromising the competitive experience for student-athletes.

Instead of retaining two practice rounds, committee members are suggesting an afternoon walk-through on the course without clubs, followed by a full practice round the second day.

If approved by the Championships Committee, the entire championships experience would be shortened from 6½ days to 5½, which would match the current per diem allocation.

Most teams currently arrive to the finals site the day before the first practice round and then participate in each of the two practice rounds. All teams then play four rounds of the championship tournament. The result is that most teams end up staying on site for 6½ days even though they are reimbursed only for 5½.

Wagner used his school as an example. “We qualified last year and received 5½ days of per diem but stayed 6½ days. Now it was worth it to give our golfers the experience, but it affected our bottom line,” he said.

Wagner said replacing the first full practice day with a half-day walk-through will give schools an option to arrive that morning, participate in the walk-through and then play the single practice round the following day. If weather washes out one of those opportunities, players will still have had some time on the course before they begin competing.

“Our proposal will take some of the pressure off the coaches and the administrators who would otherwise have their kids go to both practice days – now they can choose to without feeling like their kids are getting shortchanged on practice opportunities while they are there,” Wagner said. “It is a way to accommodate budget concerns for administrators and still allow players and coaches to fully enjoy the championships experience.”

If approved, the change would be effective for the 2010 championships.