"I assume we have a golf team but I don't know anything about them," my roommate said.
Admittedly, my roommate is no golf analyst.
"I know there are different clubs, I know there are sand traps. I know a birdie means ... Wait, that's not golf, is it?" I start laughing, and she concedes, "Yeah, it's accurate to say I know nothing about golf."
I know something about golf, though. I watch every major, every World Golf Championship, every tournament of importance - essentially, whichever tournaments Tiger Woods decides to play that year. But I also must admit that I know nothing about my own university's team. Why is that?
It is not because the golf team is bad. In fact, the team just completed one of its best seasons ever, finishing 11th in the highly competitive NCAA Championships. It is also not because golf is an obscure sport. More than 5 million Americans play at least 25 rounds of golf a year, and professional golf regularly receives prime television coverage. So why don't most Virginia students know about the men's golf team? I think it is because, realistically, they can't.
When the golf team kicks off its season at The Fall Preview this weekend, junior Ben Kohles knows there will not be a big crowd.
"I'm sure zero people will come," Kohles said. "That's expected though. We travel to some pretty far places, and this tournament is in Oklahoma."
It is difficult to ask any fan base to cross the Mississippi to support your effort.
The team's next tournaments are in Florida, Tennessee and Georgia. Its spring season starts in Hawaii. Few people will venture outside the continental United States to watch a collegiate golf team.\n"We completely understand. That's just how it is," Kohles said. "Sometimes our families can't even come out and watch us. There's not much you can really do about it."
The Cavaliers have one home match all year. One. And it is not even on Grounds, so forget car-less first-year students coming. Really, forget any of the student body coming, unless they have direct ties to the team.
"For our one tournament, we see a bunch of our friends, but that's about it," Kohles said.
Well, if you cannot see them play in person, how can you see the Cavalier golf team? ESPN has never picked up a Virginia golf match before, I don't know of any channel that has. No radio stations cover the team on a hole-by-hole basis. Kohles recommends Golfstat.com for live online scoring but also knows relatively few people can sit by their computers all day to watch golf scores update.
It is virtually impossible to know anything about the Virginia golfers except this: They are not playing for the attention. They do not receive any. So why are they playing?\nThey are not playing for the money either. Reggie Bush has made it clear that NCAA rules prohibit paying college-athletes, but students are often compensated for their time and talent through scholarships. Members of the golf team are not so lucky.
"We have four-and-a-half scholarships for our 11-person team," Kohles explained. "Coach divides it up by performance, so no one is here just for a free education."
There is that trip to Hawaii every season, but when you have to be at the golf course for an 8 a.m. tee time, there is little latitude for spending long days on the beach.
"It's 95-100 percent golf," Kohles said. "On this first tournament, we'll get there at Friday night, check into a hotel, wake up early the next morning to play practice rounds."
The majority of the team is not even playing for their futures. "A lot of kids strive for [the PGA Tour], but most of us know that only a very select few are going to make it," Kohles said.
Senior Amory Davis is one of the players who recently accepted that fact.
"I'm not going to play professional golf," Davis said. "It takes a lot of the pressure off, I'm not worried about playing professionally or sponsors. It's my last chance playing golf, so I'll be able to have more fun and take it less seriously. I'll be able to just enjoy the game."
That kind of sentiment found in college golf and other non-revenue athletics reflects sports in their purest form, stripped of the fame, money and luxurious lifestyles that so often take precedence. It represents sports truly played "for love of the game."
There are no Darrelle Revis figures on the men's golf team; no one holds out because millions of dollars are simply not enough. There are no Terrell Owens players using the season as their personal reality TV shows.
There are just guys like Ben Kohles, playing the game because they want to.
"A lot of kids on our team play just because we love the game. Everyone does," Kohles said. "It's something to do, it lets you be a part of a team. It's a pretty neat thing."
We may not be able to watch them play, but it is nice to know athletes like that still exist.
As my roommate said, "That sounds like a team I want to know"
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