Homegrown talent helped this UK team win a national title for first time
A squad full of homegrown talent recently secured another championship for the University of Kentucky.
Last week the UK men’s golf team was named the Division I academic national champion by the Golf Coaches Association of America after posting the highest cumulative grade-point average among eligible programs this spring. It’s the first time in program history the team has secured that distinction.
“I am so honored to coach these young men,” Kentucky Coach Brian Craig said in a press release from the school. “What extraordinary student-athletes they are who represent the Big Blue Nation in a first-class manner. Not only are they very bright students, but more importantly, they have their priorities in place and work extremely hard in the classroom.”
Eight of the 10 players who suited up for the Wildcats in the spring are from Kentucky. All 10 earned All-SEC academic recognition, with the seven upperclassmen being named to the All-SEC Academic Team, and the three underclassmen making the All-SEC First-Year Academic Honor Roll. Seven golfers made UK’s Dean’s List.
The Cats won the GCAA national championship by combining for a team GPA of 3.89, the highest of any UK program during the spring semester. In April, the team won UK’s CATSPY award for Male Academic Team of the Year for the fifth straight time.
UK co-captain Matt Liston, who graduated in May with a degree in finance, told the Herald-Leader in a phone interview that the honor was especially welcome after the team endured the frustration of having its season cut short because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s always great to have any sort of positive recognition. We obviously would have loved some time early in the summer to actually have some golf recognition instead of just academics,” Liston said. “But we’ll take any awards that we can get because I know a lot of our guys spent a lot of time on their school work.”
Liston, an academic All-SEC selection in each of his four years at UK, now resides in Milwaukee, working to get his career in finance jump-started. He said it’s challenging for college competitors to properly manage both their academic and athletics obligations. Liston and his fellow upperclassmen were proactive when it came to keeping the freshmen on track, and he said the newcomers were receptive to that guidance.
“It’s definitely tough to manage both at the same time,” Liston said. “Especially as a freshman. I think that’s the hardest part about it because you’re brand new to college life and you want to be very social, you want to hang out with everybody and you have to get those (studying) hours in … It’s tempting to go out and not study, but you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to get the grades. It’s a lot to handle but I know our guys did a really great job of that this year.”
The GCAA names a national champion in Division I, Division II and Division III as well as the NAIA and junior college divisions I and II. Kentucky posted the highest GPA across all six categories.
Some other golf programs from across the commonwealth also earned accolades from the GCAA. Louisville, Northern Kentucky and Kentucky Wesleyan all earned “Presidents Special Recognition” for posting team GPAs of 3.5 or better.
