“Over time I have dreamed about collegiate golf becoming more a part of the fabric of competitive golf,” says John Fields of the University of Texas, hosts of the 2024 NCAA DI Golf Championships at Omni La Costa. “I love college golf. I grew up with it and I want to see it grow.”

Now in his 37th year as a coach, Fields has led teams to more than 30 national championships, with his Texas Longhorns sides twice claiming the trophy. “I have a cadre of experiences over time” is how he describes it. 

Here, Fields shares some of those experiences and explains why they are now being harnessed to create what he and others hope will be a permanent new home for college golf's biggest and most prestigious tournament. 

What are your memories of La Costa down the years and what does it mean to you as a venue?

John Fields: Well, it's interesting how the sun and the moon and the stars came together. As a youth, I remember watching the PGA Tour Tournament of Champions that was hosted by La Costa for 30 years. Then there were six or seven PGA Tour match play championships there and one LPGA event. 

The most iconic shot that everybody remembers at La Costa is the 16th hole, par-3, probably 160 yards long. On a Monday morning after a rain delay, Tiger Woods hit a sensational shot to about six inches against Tom Lehman. It was kind of like watching a prize fight with one shot to the chin and it was over. 

I also went out there with one of my former players, Tim Herron, who was at New Mexico, when he won on the PGA Tour for the first time. I'd been out there multiple times since 1996 on recruiting trips. It wasn't difficult for me to want to sell the idea. 

It was fun to be there then, and it's fun to be there now. I've probably been to Omni La Costa 15 times since this last summer with different site visits and bringing my wife out there and our family. It's a beautiful venue. It's a great place and it's not hard to want to get on a plane for two and a half hours and be in Carlsbad, California and enjoy that wonderful place.

After you successfully pitched the idea to Omni of hosting the NCAA DI Championship at Omni La Costa, you walked the course with Gil Hanse. What did he tell you about his thinking on that first walk?  

John Fields: The North Course at the time was called the Champions Course. It was probably 7,000 yards. Gil showed us where he could create length on the golf course by staying with the same routing but moving certain greens to different spots. He also showed how he would create a more natural Southern California look on the golf course by taking out a few man made lakes and inserting Southern California barrancas, which exist at LA North and Riviera. 

Everywhere Gil Hanse goes, people applaud the work that he has done

One, when I hear that a golf course is going to go from 7,000 to 7,500 yards, that's music to my ears because our athletes are so dynamic these days and hit the ball so far. Two, I had been out to LA North, so I knew that if he did anything similar to those green structures that they would be fabulous, and they are. And three, everywhere Gil Hanse goes, people applaud the work that he has done. So, you put that in combination and you come up with an absolute recipe for success. 

Why did you set up the College World Golf Championships Foundation, Inc. and what role does it play going forwards?

John Fields: All the things we did cost money. The Rowlings spent $5.5 million with Beau Welling redoing the driving range and practice facility. Now it has three wonderful greens, a wonderful driving area and it's just spectacular. Omni then spent $300 million on the hotel with all their meeting space, rooms and their convention space. We're going to be the beneficiaries of all that. 

I did not think going forward that the University of Texas and Omni La Costa would be the benevolent godparents of the national championships. If we were going to continue to do it, the gold standard for an ongoing permanent site within the NCAA structure is our baseball tournament, the College World Series, in Omaha. They call it 'The Road to Omaha' and now we’re going to have 'The Road to Omni La Costa'. 

The gold standard is the College World Series in Omaha.

We connected with them and we learned that the College World Series has had a foundation connected to the baseball tournament since 1950.

Now they're a revenue sharing partner with the NCAA. So, we patented what's now called the College World Golf Championships Foundation with the intent that it will underwrite the cost of the tournament going forward in perpetuity. 

We hope to endow the College World Golf Championships Foundation so that kids from all over the world will be able to compete in collegiate golf going forward for the next hundred years. I believe that that's going to happen. 

What will you need to realize your ambitions to create a permanent home for the NCAA DI Championships, and for it to be regarded as the Augusta National of college golf?

John Fields: If we want it to be like Augusta, we need people involved. As the College World Golf Championships Foundation we’ve gone out to [President] Fred Perpall at the United States Golf Association. We've gone to the PGA Tour, [Commissioner] Jay Monahan. They both know about it and are excited about what we're doing. The LPGA Tour and the PGA of America, they're excited about it. 

We're at the pinnacle of amateur golf and there is a certain number of our collegians, both men and women, who are going to populate the United States Golf Association, the PGA Tour, the LPGA Tour and PGA of America in the future. I really believe that we are the center of the sun and nobody even knows it. We've never really marketed our championship but we are now. And look out world, I think collegiate golf's going to grow and be pretty exciting going forward.

Caitlin Clark has emerged as a true superstar and in doing so has placed a magnifying glass on college basketball. Do you think your vision can help the same happen with college golf?

John Fields: We've had those players, and I've been very fortunate to coach a couple of them, like Scottie Scheffler, the number one in the world right now, and Jordan Spieth, who was number one in the world in 2015-16. Tiger Woods was a college golfer. Jack Nicklaus was a college golfer. Jon Rahm was a college golfer. Phil Mickelson was a college golfer. And in women's golf, Annika Sorenstam was a college golfer. 

I believe that players will come along like Caitlin Clark. I believe that there'll be other great players. I don't know who the next great one is right now. They’re probably playing junior golf around the world somewhere but they'll play college golf within the next four years and the world's going to welcome them like they did Ludvig Aberg to the Ryder Cup team. 

Lots of wonderful things are going to happen with collegiate golf. We're going to be able to create a pathway for our kids to have a better entry into the professional world. The trickle down effect is going to be super positive.

Can you summarize what college golf has given you over the years?

John Fields: I grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico. New Mexico State University had a golf coach when I was 10, 11, 12 years old. His name was Herb Wimberley and he was there for the next 30 years. Sadly, he just passed away but not before he was inducted into the PGA Hall of Fame in Dallas. He was my mentor and really the person that I followed into collegiate golf, albeit unknowingly. 

Herb was a PGA golf professional first. He was the head golf professional at New Mexico State and the head golf coach at New Mexico State. He was also the president of our PGA section section in New Mexico. He was such a magnanimous person. He was always there to help anybody that wanted to help with their golf game or in life. I always felt like I would like to go that direction.

Our build and our dream is for a neutral site. Nobody else wanted to do it.

I ended up being the president of the Golf Coaches Association of America. None of these things that I have done in my life were planned.

They kind of come as we go along, including this NCAA championship. I wasn't thinking we were going to host the national championship. I thought San Diego State was going to host it but then they found out it was going to be a neutral site.

The entire structure of our build and dream is that it is a neutral site. Nobody else wanted to do it, so my Athletic Director Chris Del Conte decided that if we were going to actually make this happen, we needed to host it. And that's why we're hosting it.

Over time, I have dreamed about collegiate golf becoming more a part of the fabric of competitive golf. I love college golf. I grew up with it and I want to see it grow and I want to see it be exciting. More than anything I want the kids who play college golf to enjoy the fruits of what collegiate golf has allowed me to do, both in my personal life and professional life.

I met my wife Pearl at the University of New Mexico. We've been married 42 years. Pearl was my caddie on the European tour when I played in 1983. It all emanated out of collegiate golf. It all emanated out of my desire to be a college golfer growing up and being around the great people that this sport is full of. 

Golf has a lot of successful people that want to give back to the game.

As the College World Golf Championships Foundation, we have aligned ourselves with The First Tee, whose core values for kids are fantastic. They're growing and bringing more diversity to the game, which is wonderful. We've also aligned ourselves with Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney, founder of the Folds of Honor. 

Golf is philanthropic at its core because people always want to help you. Golf has a lot of successful people that want to give back to the game. You don't have to look too far to see what Augusta National is doing these days with the Drive, Chip and Putt and the Augusta National Women's Amateur championship. There are just so many great things associated with golf and we want the national championships at Division One level at Omni La Costa to be part of that fabric.