SFU golf establishes itself in NCAA
May 13, 2014
Morgan Gibbens (British Columbia Golf)
The Simon Fraser University men’s golf team is off to Michigan for the NCAA Division II Championship May 19 - 23.
And they’re a year early.
In just a few short years since SFU became the first Canadian school to join the NCAA in 2009 and underwent restructuring of the golf program, the team has developed at an incredible rate.
“We’re a year ahead of where I thought we’d be,” head coach John Buchanan said, amazed still at the progress of the SFU golf program.
The school joined the NCAA for a number of practical reasons, the teams can play in the same time zone and travel costs are lower. But perhaps most importantly, it offers athletes the opportunity to remain in Canada while still competing under the elite NCAA brand, keeping some of British Columbia’s best golfers in the area.
A combination of the NCAA brand, the academic standards of SFU and the climatic conditions of the west coast put SFU is in a fantastic position to establish itself as a strong golf program not only in Canada but in North America.
And young local golfers know it.
Senior Mike Belle of Burnaby has been with the SFU team through the development process and has remained one of the team’s strongest players. He was recently named GNAC Conference Player of the Year, averaging 74.0 strokes per round in the 2013-2014 season. 2012 PNGA Junior Champion, Kevin Vigna, was named freshman of the year.
“Vigna is different. Vigna comes to the school as a very, very established player and he is maybe the best example of a kid who probably could have gone to a number of schools down south and chose to stay in Canada,” said Buchanan.
Not only are players staying in Canada to play, but also they’re beginning to come from outside of Canada. Buchanan says due to the success of the team, he has received a number of calls about players wanting to join the program from the States and over seas.
“SFU has established a top academic profile around the world, it’s an internationally ranked school, and it’s almost an alternative for the kid who doesn’t want to go south, or whose family doesn’t want him to go south,” said Buchanan.
“Or maybe he didn’t want to go the schools who were interested in him maybe because of the location or the quality of the education. That’s the bottom line and that was always SFU’s intention from the beginning.”
Recipe for success
Though the development is ahead of Buchanan’s schedule, the process of building the program hasn’t happened over night and has taken a great deal of work from both the athletic department and the players.
The key to establishing the program, has been establishing a routine.
“When a kid comes in [to the program] there is a requirement that he is going to pay attention to a lot of detail, how he looks, how he acts, how he presents himself in public, he represents a multi-million dollar establishment, his province, his country, and himself,” explained Buchanan.
“And I think that eventually reflects on how he thinks about his practice, his discipline, his time-management, his class schedule and particularly in the world of golf because golf is a very specific sport.”
That routine and precision ensures that the team is there for practice on time and in the mind-set to get right to work.
The formidable men’s team has proved the results of this approach.
What about the other half?
Finances limited the simultaneous development of the men’s and women’s teams. It was ultimately decided to first establish the men’s program and then once in place, focus on improving the women’s program a few seasons later.
“If we try to move forward at the same pace with both teams we’re going to have a problem, so the obvious one was to go forward with the men’s,” he said.
To clarify the rational behind developing a men’s program prior to the ladies; the assumption was that because there are more male golfers in the province than women, the recruitment pool for males close to home was greater than the pool for young female players.
The idea was for the program to first establish itself in the early years with the NCAA with a recognizable men’s program, and in the meantime, nurture the women’s program as best as possible.
Funds raised from the program’s annual fundraiser at the team’s home course, the Vancouver Golf Club, are split equally between the two teams.
“By 2015-2016 we’ll have turned a corner with the women’s team, maybe not to the same degree as the men’s team that remains to be seen, but in terms of a much healthier women’s golf program,” said Buchanan.
The women’s side is currently about a year to 18 months behind the development of the men’s team, but in the past year to two years the program has begun recruiting more young ladies to join the growing program.
Most recently the ladies competed in the GNAC Championship at the end of April, they finished fourth as a team and freshman Erin Larner finished tied for third of 24 competitors.
Here’s hoping that the golf program at SFU continues to emphasize the development of women’s program and challenges itself to be as successful on both sides as they have been with developing a competitive men’s team that is making big waves in NCAA.