NCAA clarifies scheduling rules ahead of D-I men’s golf season

The NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Committee has clarified some scheduling rules ahead of the new season, including updating the submission deadline and removing some gray area when it comes to adding and dropping events.

Coaches were informed a few days ago that the schedule submission deadline for the 2024-25 season will be Sept. 1, with submissions needing to be made via the Scoreboard coaches’ portal once it opens on Aug. 5. Changes to schedules after the deadline will be subject to approval by the committee.

Moving forward, teams will be able to withdraw from tournaments only due to reasons beyond the team’s control, including full cancellations of events due to external forces like weather or changes to tournament dates outside of what was originally scheduled. Any withdrawals that don’t fall under those circumstances deemed justified by the committee, including the adjusting of tournament rounds or formats within the scheduled dates of competition, will result in that team incurring losses to each team in the field.

As for adding tournaments, teams can only do so if an entire event is cancelled due to weather. In that case, the added tournament must offer similar head-to-head opportunities and not put the team over its maximum number of competition days (24).

If a team adds a tournament not approved by the committee, it can still do so; the tournament will just be treated as an exhibition for that team and not count toward the team’s win-loss-tie record or national ranking. This applies to tournaments added after a team receives extra days due to missing the cut in a regular-season event or a partial tournament cancellation.

In past seasons, teams on the .500 rule bubble have used unused days or days from full and partial cancellations to add events where they can receive a bunch of wins and remain eligible for the postseason. The memo did not specifically address teams keeping an extra day or two at the start of the season just in case it needed to add later, though it appears that will not be allowed, either.

The committee added that these rule updates will not impact the ability to add events intended to provide additional opportunities for student-athletes to participate as individuals during the academic year.