New high school golf postseason satisfies some critics, but creates new ones
When the Kentucky High School Athletic Association revised the qualifying rules for its boys’ and girls’ golf state championships in 2019, critics within the sport railed against the changes as unfair to some of the best teams and players.
Last Wednesday, the KHSAA Board of Control revised its qualifying rules again, this time adding a new “State First Round” to be held at three to-be-determined sites that would bring back some of what was lost three years ago and even add to it. And at the same time, theoretically, it creates more competitive fields for the two-day “State Final Round Tournaments” in Bowling Green.
While some coaches around the state said they felt “blindsided” by the revisions, many welcomed it. Others said they wished they had input on how the new postseason will play out and worried their teams will be at an unfair disadvantage under the new rules.
The old sticking point: regional runners-up
By 2019, the growth of high school golf had created a problem for the KHSAA at its state championships. The fields had become too large for the events to comfortably run within their time constraints. Delays for weather and fog compounded pace of play issues already inherent in the events and, as the saying goes, time is money.
To resolve this issue, the KHSAA narrowed the state championship fields by eliminating teams who finished as runners-up in their regions, a departure from tradition. The changes came despite strenuous objections from the Kentucky Golf Coaches Association and others involved in the sport that were even aired before a state legislative committee.
Just a year earlier, Lexington Christian’s girls’ golf team won the state championship after finishing second in its region.
Players on runner-up teams could still advance to state if they made the slightly expanded individual qualifying cut, but, at the same time, those team players would push out a few others who might have made it under the old system.
Regions that had two or more highly competitive teams saw the stakes at their region tournaments rise dramatically. Last season’s Region 9 boys’ team competition took two extra sudden-death playoff holes to decide.
This past season, four of Lexington Christian’s five girls’ golfers made the individual cut after finishing second as a team in the region tournament. If those LCA golfers had been allowed to compete as a team at state, they would have finished in second place behind Marshall County in the team competition.
“When the golf format was revised before the 2019 tournament, we had received significant input from our schools to continue to look at options so that the region runner-up teams could come back to competition and yet expand the field to help grow the game,” KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett said in a press release last week announcing the changes. “With three years’ worth of data and tremendous success in our 2019 realignment of teams in balancing participation, we have the data now to support this expansion. More kids participating continues to be our goal as we work to give more opportunities for the students.”
Under the new rules, team runners-up qualify for the new State First Round, and, in addition, the individual qualifying field grows from seven golfers per region to 10. That means at total of 20 golfers from each region qualify for the “State First Round,” up from the 12 players per region who made state under the prior system.
From there, the top three teams and top 15 individual qualifiers outside those teams from each State First Round site will advance to the State Final Round Tournament in Bowling Green. A total of 90 golfers, including nine full teams, will compete in the two-day State Final Round with no cuts between days.
“We feel it’s a really good change because it achieves two goals and one is ensuring that as many people as possible have an opportunity to get that state tournament experience,” Terry Johnson, LCA’s athletics director, said. “But it also increases opportunities for the best teams in the state — whether they win the region or they finish second in the region. It helps make sure that some of the best teams will have a chance to get there. For that reason, we feel like it’s a positive change and a good compromise for all the competing interests of all the different high schools in the state.”
Madison Central girls’ coach Tennye Ohr welcomed the change. Her teams missed the state tournament as region runners-up in 2019 and 2020 but won the region last year.
“I’m fine with it. I think it’s a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, not everybody’s going to be happy with it,” Ohr said. “At least they are trying something. There were too many hard feelings the other way.”
Those hard feelings come from teams like Madison Central and LCA, who see high school golf as more than an individual sport.
“At the high school level, one of the great things about it is it’s a team sport, too,” LCA’s Johnson said. “And there’s a lot that goes along with being a team.”
The new sticking point: the ‘State First Round’
The semantics regarding the new postseason format are important. The KHSAA wants the new events called the “State First Round,” so they appear on their face as if the state championships are still a whole, even though they are now spread over two weeks at separate sites with a cut before the competitors get to play at Bowling Green Country Club, the championships’ home since 2006.
“They want the (State First Round) to feel like the state tournament. That’s why they are calling it the “First Round.’ … Honestly, to me. No. It’s not,” said Coach Todd Polston of Taylor County, the 2018 and 2019 state champions. “… But at the same time, there’s going to be schools that have never been to a state tournament that are now going to play in the first round of state. And it does mean a lot. I’m not going to take that away from anybody.”
Although Polston was among those who said they were shocked when new the rules were announced, he believes his team will be competitive enough to compete in the new eight-team State First Round pods. Taylor County’s pod site will include Regions 1-4, which covers the western third of the state. Sites for the first round will be determined at a later date.
“Now, I think I would have gotten upset if I would have been put with the Louisville region (Region 6). That would have made it tough on us for sure,” Polston said.
Questioning logic of three first-round sites
Owsley County Coach Kyle Bobrowski, who said he felt “blindsided” by the changes, doesn’t mind playing the kind of competition his boys’ and girls’ teams will face in the Region 9-12 pod. But he doesn’t believe it’s fair to throw the three eastern Kentucky regions in with Region 9, which includes central Kentucky golf powerhouses LCA and Madison Central.
“I’m OK with the (first) rounds, but I think they’re too large. They have too many teams,” Bobrowski said. “If you divided it into four or more (first-round sites), it would keep the mountains with the mountains and we’d see who the best golfers of the mountains are. I sort of like that. Let’s see what these regions can put out.”
As it stands, Bobrowski said he and other eastern Kentucky coaches worry they’ll likely have to travel to Lexington or Richmond for their State First Round tournaments and that means, to be fair to their players, they would have to add an event at that site to their regular seasons, which will be an extra expense.
“Some of us don’t have the largest budgets here to work with for travel expenses and whatnot,” he said, noting the KHSAA has “policies on limiting travel and localizing competition. That’s right in the handbook. And if I’m localizing competition, Region 9, you know, that’s considered Bluegrass. That’s not in our region. It’s not local to us. Regions 10 through 12 would be.”
Bobrowski has written to the KHSAA on behalf of his team and others to offer a four-site first round alternative that would be near the same player limits while still advancing two or three teams from each site.
“I’m a big advocate for golf in our area,” he said. “I just want to see the best for our teams and players and make sure they have the same opportunity as everyone else, and that we’re being smart and logistical about things here.”
No way to please everyone
While Bobrowski’s proposal might be a solution for eastern Kentucky schools, a four-site State First Round would place Todd Polston’s Taylor County team in the same pods as the Louisville region. Meaning: There are no easy answers.
KGCA executive director Kevin Mims said his organization wasn’t privy to the KHSAA’s latest changes until some documents were posted online the night before the meeting. But Mims appreciated that the KHSAA included some of the ideas that were put forth in 2019 to resolve the situation.
“We just think that it’s a shame that they didn’t actually sit with us and let’s talk about it and go over it,’ Mims said. “Because now you’ve got the rural rural schools up in arms.”
Mims said he also appreciated that the KHSAA board members and staff seemed open to further revisions as they discussed the plan last week.
“By making a first round of the state tournament, they are actually upping the amount of people who participate — as long as the golf community gets used to it being the ‘first round of the state tournament.’” Mims said. “It’s like everything else, it’s going to take time.
“Eventually, I think everybody will look at the First Round as just basically like the first day of cuts. … And we’re getting more kids involved. And that’s how (KHSAA officials) want everybody to look at it.”
This story was originally published January 25, 2022 at 7:48 AM.
