U.S. College Golf Landscape - Canadian Junior Golf Association

The U.S. College Golf Landscape

There are ~2,200 college golf programs in the United States including 1,300 men’s and nearly 900 women’s programs. It’s important to realize there are golf programs of every shape, size, form, and scoring average. This ranges from top NCAA DI programs to NCAA DIII, NAIA, and Junior College programs.

Here is detailed breakdown of the number of college golf programs by division and gender and an overview of each division:

Number of U.S. College Golf Programs by Association & Division

	NCAA D1	NCAA D2	NCAA D3	NAIA	NJCAA
Men	301	230	295	175	191
Women	258	185	198	122	100

Overview by Association & Division

NCAA Division One

NCAA Division Two

NCAA Division Three

In general, less competitive from golf perspective than DI or DII
NCAA DIII programs do not offer athletic scholarships but often offer substantial academic aid or grant money
Includes many fine academic institutions with stringent admissions requirements, although this does vary considerably according to the institution
Time commitment is often less than other divisions
Recruiting rules and regulations for DIII are less strict than other NCAA divisions

NAIA

NJCAA

The following summary courtesy of Junior Golf Hub will help you get an idea of scoring abilities at each level:

Men’s scoring averages from ’16 – ’17 season

Ranking	NCAA D1		NCAA D2		NCAA D3		NAIA
Ranking	Low Player	5^th Player	Low Player	5^th Player	Low Player	5^th Player	Low Player	5^th Player
1 – 50	71.3	74.0	72.8	75.7	74.1	77.8	73.9	77.2
51 – 100	71.8	74.8	73.5	76.3	75.3	80.2	74.8	79.0
100 – 200	73.0	75.9	74.9	79.2	77.1	83.3	77.4	84.4

Women’s scoring averages from ’16 – ’17 season

Ranking	NCAA D1		NCAA D2		NCAA D3		NAIA
Ranking	Low Player	5^th Player	Low Player	5^th Player	Low Player	5^th Player	Low Player	5^th Player
1 – 50	72.7	75.9	75.8	80.3	78.4	85.2	78.7	87.0
51 – 100	74.0	77.7	78.7	85.4	84.3	94.7	82.8	95.0
100 – 200	75.9	80.4	83.3	95.4	91.6	112.2	88.0	107.4

*Source: publicly available information sourced from team websites. Note not all programs publish scoring average information

Keep in mind when looking at these averages that a college golf is generally considered to be 3-4 strokes harder than junior golf as teams play longer courses and often in inclement fall and spring weather.

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