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Js1

Js1 85,651

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1 minute ago, perfectchaos007 said:

Texas finished tied for 11th place at the NCAA's. If we were projected to finish 10th thats pretty wild how accurate these rankings/projections have been lately across UT sports. I hope that means softball is winning it all 🤞

I’d die if my 2 favorite teams on campus won titles in the same athletic year (volleyball and softball)

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Js1

Js1 85,651

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1 minute ago, Jive Turkey said:

anybody know why all the flags have a Longhorn logo on them?  i haven't heard them explain it on the TV broadcast.

We are the host team 

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Jive Turkey

Jive Turkey 12,673

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1 hour ago, Js1 said:

We are the host team 

whoa.  i thought that made the most sense but didn't think we'd be hosting in Carlsbad.  huh.  learn something new every day.

i do love the match play portion of the NCAA national championships.

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ScottS

ScottS 1,076

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4 hours ago, chiu1040 said:

Maybe the previous year’s champion is the host.

Since Wake Forest won the title last year, that is not the case.

I posted a story about this in the men's golf team thread, but Texas men's coach John Fields is spearheading a movement to make La Costa the permanent site of the NCAA golf championships.

Here is an article from the San Diego paper about La Costa and how Texas became this year's host.

Quote

If you stand on the par-3 16th tee on the refurbished and renamed North Course at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa, gaze across the pond at a narrow green guarded by one bunker in front and two in in back, and it looks strikingly familiar, that’s because it is.

All that’s missing are some Georgia pines and azaleas. Squint, and you’re looking at the iconic 12th hole at Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters.

The rest of the former Champions Course at La Costa looks nothing like golf’s hallowed ground, but the notion of making it a singular destination for the college game — a goal, an ambition, a grand culmination of the season — is kind of the idea. The aspiration: Make this the permanent site of the NCAA Division I men’s and women’s golf championships in same way that Omaha, Neb., is for baseball’s College World Series.

It will be for at least three years, starting Friday. The NCAA women’s team and individual championships run through Wednesday, followed by the men next week. The course has already bid for 2027 and 2028, with a decision expected in the early fall.

“We’ll have one event in the books,” said University of Texas men’s golf coach John Fields, whose school is the event’s official host. “We’re hoping and praying that they give us those next two years. And if they do that, and we knock it out of the park, then they’ll see that we can perform. We need to perform, this golf course needs to perform.”

 

Your next question: Why is Texas hosting a college golf tournament in Carlsbad?

The original choice was San Diego State, just as Arizona State was the NCAA championships host at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., for the previous three years.

“Everything was going pretty smoothly,” said Aztecs men’s coach Ryan Donovan, whose team fell one place short of qualifying this year. “Then kind of at the last hour, they decided that, well, you’re not going to have any access to the golf course. Like, you can’t play here one round. All the other courses in previous years, that’s part of the deal when you host (to have access). You put all that effort in.

“Once they said that, I said, ‘Why? So we could see our name on TV a couple times that it’s hosted by San Diego State?’ I just didn’t think there was enough value for the effort and work we were going to have to do with no guarantee of playing in it.”

Texas stepped in to preserve the event’s neutrality, and Donovan admits it was a good decision given Field’s stature and contacts. One of those contacts is Robert Rowling, the billionaire owner of Omni Hotels and a prominent University of Texas donor.

Omni built a massive resort and golf complex in Frisco, Texas, that serves as headquarters for the PGA of America and the host of future PGA Championships. The course’s designer: Gil Hanse, whose resume includes the 2016 Olympic course in Rio de Janeiro and renovations at U.S. Open sites like Winged Foot and Los Angeles Country Club.

The designer for the $30 million remake of Omni’s North Course: Hanse and partner Jim Wagner.

La Costa is hardly new to championship golf. It hosted an annual PGA Tour stop from 1969 to 1998, then the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championships for seven years, then LPGA tournaments in 2010 and 2012. The signature moment came in January 1997, when Tiger Woods won a playoff in a rain-shortened tournament against Tom Lehman on the 16th hole, famously sticking a 6-iron from 188 yards to 2 feet that rolled back to 8 inches from the cup.

But the pro events moved on, leaving La Costa with the California State Amateur in 2014 (won by a kid named Xander Schauffele) and a few high school section championships.

Hanse and Wagner, then, were tasked with pumping life into the dated Dick Wilson design from the 1960s that had undergone several minor updates.

This is no minor update.

UCLA sophomore Meghan Royal grew up five minutes away and attended Carlsbad High School, playing there “more times than I can probably count.” When the North Course was closed and bulldozers started moving dirt around, she would drive past craning her neck to get a peek of the progress, imagining what diabolical changes Hanse and Wagner had in mind.

One side of the green at the sixth hole was shaved off to create a steep drop to collection area. The green on the already lengthy seventh hole was pushed back. The pond surrounding 8 and 9 was drained to create a natural waste area.

And that’s just what you could see from Alga Road.

Royal got to play the reimagined layout for the first time in Thursday’s practice round.

“I joked with my coaches that it’s the same course, the bones are the same, but it got a face lift,” Royal said. “They definitely changed the greens, exaggerated the slopes, made them smaller. I think they made it a lot tougher. I think it’s great.

“I always liked the North Course better than the South Course. I always thought it was a much better golf course, and I loved playing it. I think now, it’s definitely one of the top courses in San Diego. It’s a definitely championship golf course. We have a lot of picturesque golf courses in San Diego, but they’re not as hard. This will test every part of your game.”

How much harder?

“A good five strokes harder,” she said.

Fields made more than a dozen trips to La Costa at various stages of construction and had numerous conversations with Hanse.

“You can’t get in the mind of a guy like Gil Hanse,” Fields said. “You can kind of envision it. Even when they’re moving dirt, you think you kind of know. And then it’s like, oh my gosh, this is spectacular. Everyone who I’ve been around and seen it has been really surprised what he’s been able to do.

“We want to identify the best individual and the best team on an annual basis, and I think it’s going to.”

Native grasses lining the fairways give it an imposing, foreboding feel, gobbling errant shots. Bunkers have been moved to bring them into play off the tee, including two positioned in the middle of the fifth and 15th fairways. The elevated greens with shaved sides create what Wagner calls “interesting recovery shots.” The routing has stayed the same, but the fifth hole has a relocated saddleback green that runs off on either side.

Eleven is shorter. Twelve is longer.

The 13th green is pushed into the hillside. The 14th green now has no bunkers or trees guarding it. The 15th green falls off steeply to one of the ponds they didn’t drain.

Sixteen looks like No. 12 at Augusta.

One criticism of Grayhawk was it took driver out of players’ hands because of the precision required off the tee. You’ll be hitting driver at La Costa, stretched to 7,538 yards at its tips … at sea level … in thick, heavy “May gray” marine layer … with a prevailing wind off the coast.

There are two par-5s over 600 yards and two par-4s over 500, plus a 287-yard par-3 dead into the wind.

Adding to the challenge this year is the holding balls on new greens, which are typically bouncy and unreceptive to approach shots until they naturally soften over time. If the wind dries out greens and makes them even faster, look out.

“You’re going to have to bring your game,” Fields said. “I mean, it’s the real deal.”

With six tee boxes, the course — just like the one in Rio — was designed with both men’s and women’s championship events in mind. The mix of closing holes also lend themselves to the drama of match play — a short, tricky par-4, a par-3 over water, a longer par-4, a classic par-5 finishing hole with water on either side and a creek guarding the green.

La Costa has more than the course in its favor. The May weather is predictably temperate, avoiding the rain delays in other parts of the country or the triple-digit heat of Arizona. The time zone allows for prime-time television in the East Coast. The 600-room resort allows the players to stay on-site, walking to practice facilities instead of getting in a car. And it is spectator friendly, with a grassy perch outside the clubhouse offering views of the four closing holes as team match play reaches its dramatic conclusion.

It is college golf’s home for the next three years and, perhaps, longer.

“I mean, who doesn’t want to come to San Diego at the end of the year?” Royal said after finishing her practice round with the fifth-ranked Bruins. “I’m biased because I live here, but I’m so grateful to live here. It’s really a special place, and to share it with so many people who may have never been here before, I think that’s cool.

“You can’t really get much better than golf in Southern California, so why not?”

 Relevant part from the linked article:

Your next question: Why is Texas hosting a college golf tournament in Carlsbad?

The original choice was San Diego State, just as Arizona State was the NCAA championships host at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., for the previous three years.

“Everything was going pretty smoothly,” said Aztecs men’s coach Ryan Donovan, whose team fell one place short of qualifying this year. “Then kind of at the last hour, they decided that, well, you’re not going to have any access to the golf course. Like, you can’t play here one round. All the other courses in previous years, that’s part of the deal when you host (to have access). You put all that effort in.

“Once they said that, I said, ‘Why? So we could see our name on TV a couple times that it’s hosted by San Diego State?’ I just didn’t think there was enough value for the effort and work we were going to have to do with no guarantee of playing in it.”

Texas stepped in to preserve the event’s neutrality, and Donovan admits it was a good decision given Field’s stature and contacts. One of those contacts is Robert Rowling, the billionaire owner of Omni Hotels and a prominent University of Texas donor.

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Rickylovesweed

Rickylovesweed 14,554

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2 hours ago, Js1 said:

Chadwell maybe? Hasn’t been at aggy long but good results thus far 

It should attract some big names. 

They signed either the top or 2nd best recruiting class last year. 3 FR and 2 So had us as a top 10 team this year. It makes this decision pretty weird because they are going to be really good next year. 

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LTtxfan

LTtxfan 49,386

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5 hours ago, Rickylovesweed said:

It should attract some big names. 

They signed either the top or 2nd best recruiting class last year. 3 FR and 2 So had us as a top 10 team this year. It makes this decision pretty weird because they are going to be really good next year. 

Hope new coach can keep most of those current players...  

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Js1

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Under Ianello's leadership, Arizona reached the NCAA Regionals in 11 of her 14 seasons and had eight straight trips to the NCAA Championships from 2016-23, as well as one conference championship in 2015.

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LTtxfan

LTtxfan 49,386

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Screenshot_20240604-171959_kindlephoto-10676705.png.b1aa0ce4ce94e3281de432332a380fa2.png

Arizona's three-time national championship winning women's golf program is in the market for a new head coach after Texas announced the hiring of former Wildcat player and coach Laura Ianello to lead its Longhorn team.

It’s the end of an era as Ianello, who Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte called “one of the nation’s elite golf coaches” is moving on from Arizona after 14 years at the helm of the program.

During that time, Ianello coached 17 All-Americans, was a two-time Pac-12 coach of the year, won a NCAA Division I Women’s Golf national championship in 2018, and went to the NCAA Championships 9 out of 13 times the event was held. Arizona also won the 2015 Pac-12 Championship.

Arizona was the only program in the nation to reach the semifinals of match play in the 2018, 2019 and 2021 NCAA Championships.

Ianello also played golf at UA from 1999-2003 and was part of the Wildcats’ 2000 national championship-winning team.

A year ago, Arizona finished ninth in the country, just missing out on match play and this season finished sixth in their 2024 NCAA regional appearance, missing out on a berth to nationals by two shots while competing in Las Vegas.

Screenshot_20240604-171719_kindlephoto-10198134.thumb.png.17c90964d342eadb2e7baa46deb2dd1d.png

 

Del Conte, who was Arizona’s senior associate director for external operations and sports programs from 2000-06, said that Ianello “checks all the boxes as a leader and person and is a highly respected coach with a great reputation in the collegiate golf community."

“What she has accomplish during her 14 seasons at Arizona is outstanding, and she brings the wisdom and knowledge of an All-American and LPGA Tour golfer in her playing days, as well,” he said in a statement. “Laura is a program builder with a championship pedigree, and she truly cares about her student-athletes, whether it be on the course, in the classroom or as people.”

Ianello inherits a Longhorns program after the resignation of Ryan Murphy last week. Murphy, who had been UT’s women’s golf coach for the last 10 years, helped guide the Longhorns to victories in five of the last six Big 12 championships; he was named the Big 12’s 2024 Coach of the Year and led the Longhorns to an 11th place finish at the NCAA Championship.

“I am thrilled to be named the new women’s golf coach at The University of Texas,” Ianello said, also in a UT-issued statement. “My goals are simple: build positive relationships with the current team, work hard, recruit the best and win championships. I’m grateful to the University of Arizona for my 17 years (as an assistant and head coach), and I am thrilled for a new beginning at The University of Texas.”

image.png.a7a1ab81c767baaf865ac0d65071d154.png

Arizona women’s golf coach Laura Ianello watches her team compete in the Pac-12 Championships at Papago Golf Club in Phoenix on April 17, 2023.

 

Arizona announced in July 2023 that the UA and Ianello had agreed on a contract extension through 2028.

Arizona's VP and Director of Athletics Desiree Reed-Francois is now tasked with hiring her second coach since her tenure started in March. After announcing that Arizona swimming and diving coach Augie Busch would not return, Reed-Francois hired Ben Loorz from UNLV in May.

In a statement released by the UA, Reed-Francois thanked Ianello for "continuing the championship legacy" and said her department is starting a national search for their next leader. 

"This is one of the top coaching jobs in college golf, and we will work diligently to find a new head coach who is best fit to continue the championship golf culture of Arizona's women's golf," Reed-Francois said.

New Golf Center Dedication April 2024

William M. "Bill" Clements Golf Center Dedication | April 28, 2024 (Arizona Athletics YouTube) 

 

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kingkoopa6

kingkoopa6 8,395

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1 hour ago, Rickylovesweed said:

This was kind of a wild hire. 

Ianello is an Arizona alum, just received an extension last year at Arizona, and has Arizona as a top 8 program over the last decade. I guess $ talks but I would love to know how they pulled this one off. 

CDC a beast 

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TrashMaster G

TrashMaster G 17,664

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1 hour ago, Rickylovesweed said:

This was kind of a wild hire. 

Ianello is an Arizona alum, just received an extension last year at Arizona, and has Arizona as a top 8 program over the last decade. I guess $ talks but I would love to know how they pulled this one off. 

Watch the press availability video. It's crystal clear that when CDC calls, coaches listen. The combination of CDC and UT is about as lethal, for want of a better word, a combination in college personnel as you can find.

Goddamn, the Patterson years were a huge shitshow. But I'm glad we walked that desert to get us to where we are now. Not sure I'd trade CDC for anyone out there.

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