Big .500 rule implications for Stanford, others at 31-team Goodwin event
Thirty-one teams and a couple handfuls of individuals are teeing it up this week at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco for The Goodwin, a tournament that pays homage to the late Stanford coach Wally Goodwin, whose motto when he ran the event, then called the U.S. Collegiate Invitational, was to invite as many teams as possible and never play favorites.
“We’re claiming the largest field in college golf this week,” Stanford head coach Conrad Ray said of the event, which resembles more of a PGA Tour event with both morning and afternoon waves getting around 168 players, including competitors from eight top-50 programs – No. 7 Tennessee, No. 15 Georgia Tech, No. 19 Cal, No. 22 Georgia, No. 25 Oregon, No. 29 San Diego State, No. 33 UCLA, No. 48 Long Beach State and the 44th-ranked and host Cardinal.
The size of this tournament offers plenty of risk and reward for NCAA postseason hopefuls.
Division-I men’s golf enforces something called the .500 rule, which like many other sports, requires teams to have a .500 or better winning percentage to remain eligible for an at-large bid to an NCAA regional. In golf, a team receives a win for every team it beats in a tournament, a loss for each team it finishes behind and ties for those programs it equals. With 31 teams teeing it up, The Goodwin is an opportunity for teams to rack up a ton of wins – or losses.
This year’s field features eight top-75 teams (the final at-large selection, or magic number, typically falls somewhere in the upper 60s of the national rankings) who are either below or just above .500, a group that includes Stanford:
44. Stanford, 39-62-2
52. San Jose State, 47-38-2
53. San Diego, 64-61-1
54. Pepperdine, 27-71-3
58. Clemson, 49-50-1
59. Oregon State, 51-56-3
62. Colorado, 62-58-3
73. Utah, 52-51-5
Players and coaches from that group are aware of how important The Goodwin is. Just a few years ago, SMU took a huge rankings hit after suffering an injury and a disqualification in the same round, which led to a disqualification as a team and last-place finish. In terms of the .500 rule, the Mustangs were OK, but the showing knocked them down several seeds for regionals.
For Ray, whose Cardinal have had to overcome the absence of star senior Michael Thorbjornsen for the entire fall as he was recovering from a stress fracture in his back, the .500 rule is certainly of concern with conference championships right around the corner. But the key is, he says, “talking about it less.”
“Now more than ever people are paying attention to stuff that’s out of their control way more than we ever have, whether that’s PGA Tour U rankings, .500 rule stuff, all of that,” Ray said, “so my message to the guys has been head down, good golf, good shots, good decisions, and let’s see what happens.”
Having a healthy Thorbjornsen back in the fold helps. In three starts this spring, Thorbjornsen has gone T-71, T-17, win, with his victory coming last time out at the Cabo Collegiate. After months of physical therapy, massages, stretching and workouts, Thorbjornsen is “fired up” about how far he’s come, according to Ray, even if his finishes out of the gates weren’t particularly great.
That fact that Thorbjornsen was able to win in just three events back, Ray says, is uplifting enough.
“He definitely is way more in tune with what his body’s doing,” Ray said. “If nothing else, what’s come out of this is the attentiveness to being healthy and being able to manage all of that longer term.”
And it’s provided a chance for other Cardinal to set up. Eight different Stanford players have logged action in the starting lineup this season, though Ray is still trying to find out who will round out the back end of his lineup after Thorbjornsen and senior Karl Vilips.
Jake Beber-Frankel is the third-ranked player on the team, at No. 248, as he’s returned from a couple years battling injuries and mental-health issues. Barclay Brown, a two-time Walker Cupper, has struggled all season, and freshmen Ethan Gao and Kush Arora have experienced lots of growing pains. This week, sophomore Sean-Karl Dobson will get run in the starting five in a hugely important tournament for the Cardinal; Stanford needs a solo fourth or better this week to get back over .500 with two big events, the Western Intercollegiate and Pac-12 Championship, remaining.
“The best teams and the team that will ultimately win the whole thing are the deepest teams,” Ray said. “It’s a little bit of a razor wire that you walk because you’re balancing developing that depth versus winning now, and I think giving people opportunity is a big part of developing your 4, 5, 6, 7 guys. … Where we’ll ultimately land, I don’t know, but I do think that’s an important piece to success; we’ve gotta get the whole lineup performing how they can, and whoever that is, we’ll figure it out.”
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.500 watch
Here is a complete list of top-75 programs either below or fewer than 10 wins above the .500 mark:
32. Oklahoma State, 49-62-3
34. Wake Forest, 53-54-1
44. Stanford, 39-62-2
52. San Jose State, 47-38-2
53. San Diego, 64-61-1
54. Pepperdine, 27-71-3
57. South Carolina, 42-40
58. Clemson, 49-50-1
59. Oregon State, 51-56-3
60. Houston, 54-49-5
62. Colorado, 62-58-3
65. College of Charleston, 46-45-3
68. Charlotte, 50-41-2
72. Kentucky, 46-44-1
73. Utah, 52-51-5
