SPC Update

UW Men’s and NCAA Golf Update

The golf season ended for the Huskies at the completion of Regional Qualifying for the NCAA Championships a few weeks ago, with the Dawgs failing to advance to the NCAA Finals. I am sure that coach and the players will tell you they are disappointed not to make the finals, but there was some very stellar play and results this year, with several of their players earning All-Pac-12 and regional honors. The “offseason” begins with the coaching staff holding many official visits with recruits, and recruiting to identify the best talent. The Huskies are a very international team, with 5 of 10 players being from outside the US, so international recruiting has taken a very important role for the program. The individual players will complete their spring quarter studies next week and embark on their elite amateur tournament schedules for the summer. Expect to see several players playing and practicing at Sahalee over the summer.

The Men’s NCAA Championship tournament just concluded on May 31st at Grayhawk in Scottsdale, AZ This tournament truly identifies the best in the sport, and verifies the quality of field that is lined up for the 2023 and 2024 versions of the SPC 30 teams play 72 holes of Stroke Play and to identify an individual winner, and team qualifiers for the match play portion of the tournament The field of 30 teams in stroke play included 7 teams who will be teeing it up at Sahalee in September (Illinois, Pepperdine, Arizona State, Stanford, Texas Tech, Texas, and Duke) Of those 7 teams, 3 teams (Illinois, Pepperdine, and ASU) advanced to the match play portion of the tournament Joining the 3 2023 SPC teams in the Match Play portion were Florida, and North Carolina, which will be in the SPC in 2024. When the dust settled, Florida won the championship in dramatic fashion turning late deficits into victories in their matches to take home the trophy. Florida visited Sahalee 2 years ago when they were in town for their Regional Qualifying tournament and were hosted by Tyler Dion and Erik Hanson. Coach JC Deacon still talks about how amazing his teams experience was at Sahalee and how much he enjoys the course. We can’t wait to see them back here!

In short – the SPC is going to bring the best amateurs in the world to Sahalee the next few years, and these players will be PGA Tour stars of the future!

Thanks for reading and hope to see you all spectating or volunteering with the SPC.

Sincerely,

Kevin White

SPC Tournament Chair