Team golf takes this to another level, leading to additional context amongst teammates. The sport I love most may be several decades behind baseball - the king of analytical historic research - but we are learning new ways to quantify golf beyond the counting scores, and in doing so, deepen our fandom of arguably the loneliest collegiate team sport.

For this two-part series - split by gender as part A/B rather than I/II - I've been given access to the suite of Scoreboard's Pro Analytics to go deeper into a season-long analysis of men's and women's college golf. Even without the benefit of the shot-by-shot data, there is still a wealth of insight available through these metrics which weave together all of those contexts. This is not meant to be a complete or even exhaustive account of the 2025-26 season, however I hope you find the numbers interesting and see a new way to enjoy (and perhaps argue about) college golf.

Five different Cardinal players spent at least one round as a leader

Women's college golf has seen its share of dynasties. With its third championship in five years and fourth since 2015, Stanford has unquestionably earned that label. For a team that took more losses in regular-season match play (2) than across all stroke play tournaments combined (1) in 2025-26, the only hurdle seemed to be if they could successfully navigate all three final matches at the NCAA DI Championship. It turned out to not be a problem as Coach Anne Walker’s team earned another ring, and both she and Assistant Coach Brooke Riley earned WGCA national coaching honors.

At some point you simply run out of superlatives and have to rely on the data to emphasize their prowess. Stanford was the leader in over 75% of their rounds each of the last two seasons. Five different Cardinal players spent at least one round as a leader in 2025-26, and all five of them were in the top 5 in 30%+ of their rounds. Perhaps more impressively was that they had a sixth player join them in beating the field average in ~75% of their 152 combined competitive rounds played.

Just like on the men’s side, it’s interesting to see that metrics such as Drop Score Differential - the measure of how close the drop score was to contributing to the team score - reveal that other teams were doing amazingly well in compressing their scores too.

As dominant as Stanford was all season, they weren’t the only title contenders

Texas, led by 2026 individual champion and #1 ranked player, Farah O’Keefe, had a 2025-26 Drop Score Differential average of 1.86. Compare that to Stanford’s 1.98 and Southern California’s 2.59. Ten of Texas’s 37 stroke play rounds had a Drop Score Differential of 0.00, meaning multiple players shared what could be considered either the last counting score or drop score designator. Combine that with their Average Counting Score of 71.51 - compared to Stanford’s 69.63 and USC’s 70.23 - and you can see that as dominant as Stanford was all season, they weren’t the only title contenders.

Looking at the 2025-26 champions across all collegiate levels, we see that not only were they ranked at the top of their respective divisions, most had their own stories of repeated success. What can digging further into each one of the team Pro Analytics Profiles reveal as keys to their success?

Coach Kenny Trapp became the winningest coach in DII women’s golf history with team victory #93 in October. His Dallas Baptist (DBU) team earned 5 more victories including a repeat national title - their fourth in six years - to put him on the doorstep of triple digits. In Scoreboard’s Pro Analytics, we see that the last several years DBU has excelled at the longer courses (>6100 yards) and has a lower par-5 scoring average than nearly every other team. Obviously you don’t survive three rounds of stroke play followed by three rounds of medal match play to win (another) championship on just those metrics alone, but it’s interesting to see how that played a factor in their match play victories as the only team under-par on the par 5s.

Wingate Coach J.D. Lamm, who later took the men’s team to the DII Finals, saw his #1 ranked women’s team lead the NCAA championship field in birdies as well as dominating the par 3, 4, and 5 scoring on their way to a historic finish in the stroke play portion. The Bulldogs owning these categories was unsurprising given their averages for the season, and their first ever semi-finals appearance capped an amazing season which included a Conference and Regional title. What’s something that both Finalists - DBU and Anderson - had in common? Better 36 Hole Day Average Scores than their semi-final opponents, which is crucial in the second 18-hole match of the day.

There’s a reason why Emory Coach Liz Fernandes was the WGCA DIII National Coach of the Year last season and Carnegie Mellon Coach Dan Rodgers earned the honor this season. They oversaw two outstanding programs who finished 1-2 the past three NCAA DIII National Championships. Both teams had their top two players finish inside the top 10. However, what really made the difference were the other three players behind them. Their Drop Score Differential - 2.28 vs 3.00 in favor of Emory - really highlighted this disparity despite there being less than 3/4 of a stroke difference in the season average. In the end, Emory, headed by men’s Head Coach John Sjoberg following a late-season coaching change, walked away with the championship. Not only was it their second in a row, they bettered the NCAA DIII Championship scoring record they had set the previous season, which makes sense given their year-over-year improvement across the board in Scoring Distribution.

Makena Junkin of Texas Wesleyan beat the field average in every round she played this season

The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD Savannah) got off to a slow start at the NAIA Championship, but that didn’t worry Coach Chris Kamys. As a team, the Bees had an excellent 43.84% Comeback percentage - where the team improved from one round to the next by multiple strokes - with an average improvement of 4.88 strokes in those Comeback rounds. Along with his second Red Banner (NAIA championship trophy) in as many years, Coach Kamys was recognized as the NAIA National Coach of the Year. The individual title went to Makena Junkin of Texas Wesleyan who beat the field average in every round she played this season (and all but 1 last season) and was the leader in 36% of those rounds!

Coach Laura Brown - former Florida Gator - is the first and only head coach for Daytona State College, and has led them to 12 NJCAA DI team championship victories with the addition of the 2025-26 title. On paper, including a majority of Scoreboard’s Pro Analytics, Odessa College seemed poised to repeat. However, the Falcons relied on steady improvement to overcome the two-shot deficit in the final round and capture the title by a single stroke. On the individual side, it was a repeat championship performance from Odessa’s Napajira Luesattha. Nami, as the Thailand native prefers, was one of the top transfer recruits in the country this summer. She ultimately chose to join Clemson for the 2026-27 season, who will certainly benefit from adding a player who logged more birdies than bogey+ combined all last season.

Brooks had the better 6-hole splits and this momentum down the stretch earned her the individual national title in a two-hole playoff.

The NJCAA DII Championship also crowned a repeat team champion as the #1 ranked Shalton State CC earned their second title in just three years of existence. They were led by sophomore Katie Hallmark who stood tied with Wallace State’s Mallory Brooks at the end of 72 holes. Both players had strong Deviation Averages (round-to-round difference from their scoring average). However, Brooks had the better 6-hole splits and this momentum down the stretch earned her the individual national title in a two-hole playoff. Coach Chris Sanford has two sophomores returning from this 2025-26 championship team who finished in the top 10 and excellent season-long Scoring Distribution as they chase the three-peat.

Following the 2025-26 NCAA DI Championship, Scoreboard social media shared some interesting Pro Analytics stats from Farah O’Keefe’s championship run. The Historic Course Scoring revealed that the Texas junior lowered her par 3, 4, and 5 scoring average all three times playing La Costa, while also bettering her season-long average in each of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd 6 Hole Grouping Average.

Taking this further, we see that both of the other NCAA champions had notably similar metrics in the context of their respective divisions. Just like O’Keefe, Wingate’s Amely Bochaton finished as the #1 ranked player in her division and won the NCAA individual title. She led the DII field in par 3, 4, and 5 scoring, recorded the most birdies, and made just one bogey. Carter Sichol of Carelton wasn’t as obviously dominant in her 1 stroke victory in the DIII championship, yet she also followed her 6 Hole splits pattern with a strong performance in the middle groupings which ultimately proved the difference. We can look at their Momentum skills to see how all three players relied on both their high Bounce Back % (following a bogey+ with a par or better) and Gas Pedal % (stacking birdies on birdies) to earn their shiny new rings.

All three players relied on both their high Bounce Back % (following a bogey+ with a par or better) and Gas Pedal % (stacking birdies on birdies) to earn their shiny new rings.

So now what can be done with the above info? These metrics are a snapshot in time, simultaneously historical records and bits of data which can be re-framed for any context needed. Coaches can look at any subset of these and select points of emphasis, track year-over-year changes, or even assist in deciding who gets a seat in the van. Players can do the same, utilizing the comparison tool to find their measuring stick - against teammates, Conference rivals, or anyone in the entire Division - and (ideally) motivation for improvement. Fans are going to do what fans do: boast about the things our team does well and dismiss and/or yell about the rest.

At the end of the day, golf is about getting the ball in the hole in the fewest strokes possible. Some may only be interested in that singular pursuit, however for others the Pro Analytics data provides an additional lens through which to view the different contextual metrics and paint a richer portrait of player and team performance. If nothing else, I hope we have found a unique way to remember the historic 2025-26 college golf season and perhaps contextualized the sport in a more interesting way.

David Tenneson a college golf historian and the face behind 5count4.

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