I think the very beginning of the turnaround was when they

by Grantland, y'allywood, Wednesday, April 22, 2026, 06:34 (3 hours, 24 minutes ago) @ PuppyBowl
edited by Grantland, Wednesday, April 22, 2026, 06:38

hired Coach Thomas. Noel was a nice enough guy and he loved ND, but Jesus he had no idea about golf. At least Thomas knew golf. That and they started scheduling real tournaments. I think they went to Akron the year after I left and Scotland not too long after.

We had a couple of meetings with Boulac and Conboy (who I think is retiring BTW) about how bad it was. They agreed but just said they could not change all the programs at once.

I had a few decent offers, VA offered me a 1/2 schollie (they had just built Birdwood), UNC offered me walk on status with a chance to earn a schollie (this is when they were pretty damn good Davis and Mark Love were on the team), West Point was talking to me, Yale, and a few ACC/SEC teams expressed light interest (especially GATech and UGA).

I went to ND, won the ND Open (IIRC) beat the fuck out of the guy next in line. But the guy next in line (who became a wonderful friend) was chosen to play over me because the other guy was a junior.

Complete BS. Then they fucked up my eligibility for a red shirt by making play in the last match of Frosh year - which I ended up playing okay in.

To my extreme discredit, I was like fuck this and just partied. I should have either transferred or busted my ass. One kid who is still a friend did transfer. He played in a couple of USOpens during his career.

My point is, I could have gone many places but I loved ND. Kinda the Kubinski story but I was not as good as that kid.

Also, on the tournaments, I knew the guys in Statesboro who ran the Schenkel. In its day a huge tournament and still pretty big. I asked if they would let us in and they said of course Doug its ND. "But we suck." We don't care you are in if you want. The ND name carried weight.

Noel would not play - he liked saying we won the MAC and had a great record. Christ!

Just a little effort and all of our teams are decent by default. Maybe not anymore but back in the day it would have been easy.