November 11, 2025 • by Mikkel Bjerch-Andresen
The highly anticipated Fall portion of the collegiate golf season felt like it flew by. We might only be a few events in, but the first part of the season yielded some solid indications of who might be built for the long haul of the Spring. Let’s look at the biggest events and dissect what the scoring data from DI men’s and women’s golf can tell us.
We usually see windier conditions and more challenging set-ups in the Spring and for the post-season, I tend to wager on disciplined teams with depth in their lineups. After all, college golf counts four scores every day and a lead horse can only pull so much weight.
The two national runners-up from last year’s NCAAs top the Fall Scoreboard rankings. Both Virginia’s men’s team and Stanford's women’s team have depth, experience, and impressive underlying numbers.
The Virginia Cavaliers closed off the Fall by finishing runner-up at the East Lake Cup, losing to the Florida Gators in the final. Senior Ben James is a future (and potentially current) world-beater. He’s averaging 1.1 bogeys per round this season, down from his 1.4 last year and has not finished outside the top-3 individually in his three events.
In total, the team bogey rate dipped under 13 per cent this Fall, a 2-point shave from 2024-25. For reference, the men’s division I average bogey-rate this Fall is 20.5 per cent. Virginia has accumulated these numbers in just a few events, but they've included competing on tough golf courses like Colonial and the Golf Club of Georgia.
Over on the women's side, the top ranked Cardinal was utterly dominant last season, particularly in stroke play. However, they lost the final match at NCAAs to Northwestern. This Fall, we've seen yet another indication of the volatility of matchplay: The Cardinal’s 3-2 finals loss to Wake Forest in the Stephens Cup.
The Lady Trojans are under par cumulatively for the par-3s. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that as a team
We know Anne Walker’s team will be all the way up there wherever they tee it up this Spring. Heck, they might go on emulate last season and win every Spring stroke play event they enter. Match play, however, remains their puzzle to solve.
The #2 sides in the DI rankings, LSU men and USC women, mirror each other in a bunch of ways. Both cut their double-bogey rate below 1.5 per cent (LSU from 1.8 per cent last year, USC from 1.7 per cent). LSU has the best bogey-or-worse rate in the country on the men’s side at 15.4 per cent. USC (17.3 per cent) is fourth among the women’s teams, only bettered by Stanford, Auburn, and UCF.
Both LSU men and USC women rank first in par-3 scoring, a metric that many coaches pay close attention to. The Lady Trojans are under par cumulatively for the par-3s, something I don’t think I’ve ever previously seen by a team.
LSU's Jake Amos is in his second season with the Tigers but the squad somehow feels seasoned this year. Freshman Dan Hayes has been a nice, steady addition, but the rest of the recipe is similar to 2024/25. USC, meanwhile, picked up a big-time transfer in Elise Lee from Northwestern. Other than that, pretty much the same solid foundation remains.
Added to the mix that Amos and USC's Justin Silverstein are both on revenge tours this year after LSU missed out at regionals and USC lost the opening round of NCAA Matchplay to Florida State. Both their teams are elite, hungry and most definitely national contenders.