Looking to further promote the talent in college golf, the Golf Channel and East Lake Foundation inaugurated the East Lake Cup in the fall of the 2015-16 season. The final four teams from each of the two championships accepted invites to the historic venue that had witnessed Jordan Spieth winning the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup just six weeks earlier. 

The Southern California Lady Trojans captured the first East Lake Cup by defeating Duke in the match play final, while the Illinois men took down the Georgia Bulldogs. The event proved to be a great success, raising $475,000 for the East Lake Foundation to serve the surrounding community.

The second annual playing of the East Lake Cup in 2016 brought an additional day of competition, giving players an 18-hole stroke play qualifier followed by two rounds of team match play. This shortened version of the NCAA Championship format has been used in this event ever since. 

On the men’s side, Scottie Scheffler took medalist honors for Texas with a six-under-par 66 that still stands as the tournament record low score.

It won’t come as a shock that it’s difficult to make the East Lake Cup field, but you may be surprised by the year-over-year turnover rate: 67% for the men and 75% for the women!  

While rosters change every year, teams that do make it to East Lake earn their way back to NCAA match play at the end of the season at a 50% rate for the women and 42% for the men. 

Only two teams have won the East Lake Cup and then won the NCAA Championship at the end of that season, and they both won in the fall of 2020. 

Due to the premature end of the 2019-20 season, the 2020 East Lake Cup field was selected by going by the final spring team rankings. One of the teams benefiting from higher ranked teams not playing in the fall was the Ole Miss women, who took down Texas in the first round and then South Carolina just six months before earning their first NCAA championship.

Pepperdine’s men, who had been one of the top ranked teams the previous season, overcame a tough test against the Oklahoma Sooners. The two teams would rematch just a few months later for the 2021 NCAA championship, with the Waves again coming out on top.

Teams return to competition this year at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia, which has hosted every iteration of this event with the exception of last year. Course renovations following the 2023 PGA Tour Championship forced the 2023 East Lake Cup to be played at nearby Atlanta Athletic Club, which was celebrating its 125th anniversary. The two clubs share significant history, primarily with their shared association with legendary amateur Bobby Jones.

Georgia Tech has a special connection with Jones’ home course, boasting a number of historic past members including Bobby Jones and Perry Adair, who essentially started the Georgia Tech golf program; Watts Gunn, who earned the school’s first championship medalist honors in 1927; and 1934 championship medalist Charlie Yates, who not only was the low amateur in the inaugural Masters tournament but also so important to the East Lake Club that their No. 2 course — designed by Donald Ross — was named in his honor. Yates was with Jones when the legend played his final round at East Lake in 1948.

In 2023, Georgia Tech’s Kale Fontenot edged out Georgia natives, twins David and Maxwell Ford (North Carolina), for the first individual title of his career. UNC had the last laugh, however, defeating Georgia Tech in the next day’s semi-final match on their way to taking home the East Lake Cup in its only appearance in the event. 

Both 2024 NCAA semifinalist Georgia Tech and runner-up Florida State will be making a repeat appearance, while semi-finalist Ohio State will be in the field for the first time. The reigning NCAA champion Auburn Tigers have fond memories of East Lake having won in their only previous appearance in 2018. 

Hiroshi Tai (above) is looking to build on the special connection between Georgia Tech and East Lake to become the second NCAA individual champion to win East Lake Cup medalist honors (Gordon Sargent of Vanderbilt was the first in 2022), while Auburn’s Jackson Koivun tries to become the second Haskins Award winner to be medalist here (Chris Gotterup [Oklahoma], 2021). Only Georgia Tech has a team win so far this season having won the OFCC-Fighting Illini last month.

Last year’s finals match in the women's tournament featured the two previous NCAA championship teams with Wake Forest claiming a narrow victory over Stanford to become the only team (men or women) to follow up an NCAA championship with an East Lake Cup title.

Victory extended the Deacs’ undefeated run in match play to six months, including all three team matches at the 2023 the NCAA Championships, defeating Texas 3-2 for the Stephens Cup title and defeating USC and Stanford for the East Lake Cup title.

Stanford Cardinal is the only team to make the 2024 NCAA Championship semi-finals that is absent from this year’s East Lake Cup.

The USC Lady Trojans (above) will be making their fifth appearance, meanwhile, and looking to add to their record three team victories (2015, 2017 and 2018).

David Tenneson is on a mission to archive and preserve college golf history, including data, stories and personal recollections. He has a growing list of articles, including series on the men’s and women’s championships, available on his free newsletter at 5count4.substack.com.