College Golf: Greatest Team Ever in College Golf?

Debate after debate takes place in clubhouses after every round of golf. None of those debates, over the last several years, have been more spirited than determining what team was the greatest in college golf history.

There are several teams you could include in the conversation. Tiger Woods and his team at Stanford; Texas throughout the years; and many others.

However, no college golf debate exists without the comparisons between Wake Forest when Curtis Strange played there and Corey Pavin's UCLA team.

In 1974, Strange led Wake to the NCAA title, making the greatest team comeback in NCAA history. At one time, Wake Forest was 33 shots behind, only to make that deficit up. In addition, Strange hit one of the greatest shots in NCAA history to win the individual title.

At Carlton Oaks in Southern California, Strange was staring 220 yards from the middle of the fairway on the par-5 18th. What happened next is storybook. Legendary coach Jesse Haddock encouraged Strange to lay up. Instead, Strange rifled a 1-iron to within three feet for a championship clinching eagle.

The next year, Jay Haas would win the NCAA individual title for Wake. A lot of people think the 1975 team, who won 9 times, was the greatest college golf team of all-time. That team included Strange, Haas, Bob Byman and David Thore.

UCLA might have something to say about who was better in their prime.

While UCLA's team record was not nearly as good at Wake Forest, the number of players that made the PGA Tour off of the 1982 team is staggering. In addition to Pavin, who skipped his junior season to play to get ready for the Masters and the US Open, UCLA had Jay Delsing, Steve Pate, Tom Pernice, Mickey Yokoi, and Duffy Waldorf on the same college team at the same time.

All of them except Yokoi would go on to win on the PGA Tour and Pavin, a Hall of Famer, would go on to win the US Open.

While Wake Forest had a better overall college record, UCLA was arguably the greatest collection of players on one team. Either way, these two storied programs were teams for the ages.