JAMES BYRNE GIVES SCOTTISHGOLFVIEW
THE INSIDE STORY ON THE
AMERICAN COLLEGE GOLF CIRCUIT

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Top Scottish prospect James Byrne from Banchory is home for the Festive season after his first six months at Arizona State University. He has been talking to me about the recent news that Michael Stewart and Paul Ferrier have signed Letters of Intent to join American colleges next year and other college golf matters.

BYRNE: Paul Ferrier signing for UNC-Charlotte is a fantastic move for him. They have one of the best golf teams in the States and were in fact ranked No. 1 in the nation after winning their first 2 tournaments. Paul will have a hard time making the starting line-up, but he is in a similar position to me and I believe that such strong competition can only improve our games.

FARQUHARSON: How would you sum up your first few months at Arizona State?

BYRNE: I thoroughly enjoyed my first semester at ASU and feel I have already made improvements. Our stringent work-out programme along with our structured practice sessions and the great motivation in the team makes it hard not to.
I competed in all three of the tournaments I was available for in the Fall, which I am obviously pleased about since there are 11 guys in the squad and only five can play in a tournament.
In the spring ASU are bringing in at least two more players – Stefan Gross of Germany and Braxton Marques, a local player from Arizona. Braxton competed in the World University Games for the USA recently in Thailand.
You will be aware that Bjorn Akesson recently signed the NLI committing himself to ASU and will start with us in August. Bjorn won the Polo Invitational last month which is arguably the biggest junior tournament in the world. That will boost our squad to 14, making fierce competition for places.

FARQUHARSON: Tell us things about American college golf that we might be unaware of on this side of the Atlantic.

BYRNE: For a start, we are limited to 12 tournaments a year, which are usually spread out with four tournaments in the Fall and eight in the spring. The college season builds towards the season-ending NCAA National Championship, which teams need to qualify through via Regionals.
The country is split into Conferences (basically regions). ASU are a Pacific 10 school. The Pac10 also includes Stanford, Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, University of Arizona, USC, UCLA and California Berkeley – all West Coast.
Other conferences include the Big East (Louisville), the Big Ten, Atlantic Coast Conference, etc. The end-of-year Pacific 10 Championships are obviously made up of the 10 universities I listed. However, many tournaments over the year are invitationals, and we travel the country over the course of the season, playing in various tournaments hosted by a number of colleges from different conferences, i.e. Hawaii, Florida and Illinois. We host our tournament in April, the ASU Thunderbird Invitational.

FARQUHARSON. Is it a bit like the British football transfer market, i.e. the wealthier the university, the more it can spend on recruiting the best young players available?

BYRNE. No. Certainly not. Colleges are limited to only 4.5 scholarships per golf team. So basically the coach needs to spread the money out between all the players. Fortunately for me, the ASU coach tends to favour the international players because firstly it costs more, and secondly he wants to draw us in from abroad. A few of the players are on no scholarship at all and have to play the full fees.

FARQUHARSON. So does the head coach decide before each tournament which five of his players will compete in it?

BYRNE. College teams are selected by qualifying among the players. We usually play a 72-hole qualifier (within our own squad) before each tournament, with the low players travelling and the Coach making one pick. When I go back in a couple weeks, we are going straight into a five-round qualifier for a tournament in Hawaii in the start of February.

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