With a California federal judge’s recent preliminary approval of the House v. NCAA settlement, the landscape of college athletics will change forever. While many are focused on how the deal will affect revenue-generating sports such as basketball and football, the settlement also will have a major impact on college golf.
In May, the NCAA agreed on a settlement to end three antitrust lawsuits. Included is $2.78 billion in payments to current and former Division I athletes dating to 2016. The settlement also introduces a revenue-sharing model among Power 5 schools and athletes as well as regulation of name, image and likeness collectives.
Golf rosters will be limited to nine players. Until now, there was no limit on roster size. Schools can also choose to provide full scholarships to all nine players, up from a maximum of 4½ grants for men’s golf and six for women’s golf. In most stroke-play tournaments, schools enter five players and take the low four scores each day to compile the team score.
While it’s early and so much is speculation, college golf may be changed by the settlement according to athletics directors and coaches interviewed by GGP.
While the increase of available scholarships might appear to be exciting, it’s doubtful whether many (if any) schools will decide to fund all nine golf roster spots initially. The decision will differ from school to school, said Pat Goss, the director of golf and former interim senior deputy director of athletics at Northwestern.
“My assumption would be that most schools will stay at some version of the 4½,” Goss said. “And I think you may have some schools who increase it some.”
The settlement also will increase scholarships in other sports such as football, which will add 20. Goss says that money must come from somewhere. After all, football is a revenue-generating sport; golf isn’t.
“There’s a chance there’s going to be some schools who decrease [golf scholarships],” Goss said. “One of the biggest things every school is trying to get to is your competitiveness in football.”
That brings up the issue of Title IX: How can colleges add football and other scholarships while remaining compliant with the federal legislation that prohibits sex-based discrimination? Armen Kirakossian, head coach of the UCLA men’s team, believes it will be difficult.
“If you're adding 20 scholarships in football, I would imagine any university is going to have some Title IX issues when you talk about trying to add scholarships for men’s golf,” Kirakossian said.
More football scholarships means adding scholarships for women’s sports. Adding scholarships to men’s golf means the same thing. That money has to come from somewhere, and that fact could prevent many universities from using all available scholarships.
“Maybe the way we do it right now, where we offer partial scholarships to a lot of players, goes away. You just go all in on four players in your offer, trying to get the blue-chip players.”
David Ingles, head coach of men’s golf at Northwestern
But, as Goss said, that decision will vary among schools. Some might decide to fund more than the traditional 4½ for men or six for women, if not all nine. David Ingles, head coach of the Northwestern men’s team, said colleges could alter the makeup of their rosters.
“Maybe the way we do it right now, where we offer partial scholarships to a lot of players, goes away,” Ingles said. “You just go all in on four players in your offer, trying to get the blue-chip players.”
Schools with more available money will be able to fill their rosters with more of these elite players while schools that stay around the old scholarship levels might be left at a disadvantage. Mike Small, head coach of the Illinois men’s golf team, believes this could be a problem.
“I think there's going to be competitive inequality probably more into the future than there has been,” Small said. “It depends on what each department or each university's ambitions are to compete in certain sports.”
The threat of competitive inequality puts programs in a difficult situation. Alicia Um Holmes, the UCLA women’s head coach, said there might have to be some regulation for fairness, perhaps at the conference level. Northwestern’s Ingles said any regulation should be national.
“I hope at some point there's a level-ish playing field that we can all kind of agree on per sport,” Ingles said. “The thought of having all the SEC on nine scholarships and a lot of teams at 4½ doesn't seem too competitive.”
While so much is still unknown, one certainty is that players will be cut. Many college teams carry more than the future roster limit of nine players. On X, Oregon State men’s head coach Jon Reehoorn calculated that about 65 roster spots will be lost in the Power 4 conferences – Big Ten, Big 12, Southeastern and Atlantic Coast – when the changes go into effect. Northwestern’s Goss believes this number will be significantly higher when looking at all of Division I.
“I think if you did a survey and you took an average roster size across the country in Division I, it’s probably a little bit more than nine,” Goss said. “This probably means a couple of hundred roster spots are being eliminated right away.”
From an opportunity standpoint, some coaches believe this is disappointing.
“Roster caps in golf eliminates opportunities for young women athletes,” said Laura Ianello, Texas’ women’s head coach.
For teams with large rosters, there’s also a recruiting concern. Coaches have already recruited for upcoming classes, which means a roster limit could deny some of these incoming players a spot on the team. Um Holmes said she was worried UCLA could have this problem due to a large number of incoming recruits for the 2025-2026 academic year. However, UCLA’s roster numbered eight players to open the fall season.
“That was a good thing, because I didn't have to have a tough conversation with one of our commits,” Um Holmes said.
While the new roster caps might be a difficult adjustment for some teams, golf is a sport that doesn’t need large rosters because of the typical five-player tournaments. A large roster means many players might not even see competition.
Illinois’ Small favors small teams, so the new roster limit won’t affect his approach. For the 2024-25 season, Illinois has seven players on the roster, down from nine last year.
“I believe in small teams,” Small said. “You have more time to work with your players and build relationships with the kids.”
“The reality is, a player gets better at a faster rate and is happier when they play on a Division II team versus when they sit on the bench on a Division I team.”
Gary Bissell, Head golf coach at denver
With a roster cap, spots are now more valuable than ever. Coaches may be less willing to take risks on non-scholarship or walk-on players in favor of saving the spot for a future recruit. Goss himself was a non-scholarship player at Northwestern, and he’s unsure about the position of the walk-on.
“I do think that those opportunities will be few and far between going forward,” Goss said. “Roster spots are going to be so precious that you’d rather save that spot for someone the following year.”
So where will players who lose Division I opportunities go? Some may choose to stop playing college golf entirely. Others will enter the transfer portal.
Before moving to Denver as men’s coach for the 2023-24 season, Gary Bissell spent nine years coaching Division II Grand Valley State in Michigan. He contends the changes will hurt many prospective players.
“I think the people that are hurt the most are current players on rosters,” Bissell said. “But even more so, I think it hurts, whatever year it goes into effect, that immediate recruiting class.”
Though Bissell says the changes will hurt many athletes in the short term, they could be good in the long run – for the players themselves and Division II golf.
Goss agrees. He also believes some of the players could transfer to Division III schools, which do not offer athletic scholarships.
“I think we're going to hit a point where those kids who went to be the 11th or 12th person at a Big Ten school as a non-scholarship player, it would be a better opportunity for them to go to play for one of these high-level Midwestern Division III programs,” Goss said.
To some athletes, this might not be the most attractive option. However, Bissell believes there is nothing like playing and getting experience.
“A lot of junior players and collegiate players want to be on Division I teams because they think it sounds cool,” Bissell said. “The reality is, a player gets better at a faster rate and is happier when they play on a Division II team versus when they sit on the bench on a Division I team.”
Dominic Guarnieri has been the men’s and women’s head coach at the University of Findlay in Ohio since 2012. He led the women’s team to a Division II national title in 2022. Like Bissell, Guarnieri believes the changes will not only benefit the overall competitiveness of Division II but will help the players as well.
“I tell this all the time to kids I’m recruiting,” Guarnieri said. “If you want to play golf after college, it essentially doesn't matter where you play in college.”
Guarnieri says this is because players who want to play professionally likely have to go to Q-School after college.
“If they want to play professionally, just shoot the scores,” Guarnieri said.
Players are going to be cut from Division I programs, but what about the programs themselves? Some, including Oklahoma State men’s golf coach Alan Bratton, believe some non-revenue sports might be in danger.
“All that money that’s going to be paid out is really going to put a lot of athletic departments in a bind,” Bratton said. “It will probably put some sports on the chopping block for the future.”
While some golf programs might be in danger, many believe golf might be in a safer position in relation to other non-revenue sports.
“It's a small sport with only nine players in the new roster limits,” Goss said. “It's relatively a low-cost sport compared to others.”
Golf also benefits from being a status sport, one that takes a significant amount of money to play. Northwestern’s Ingles says it is easier to raise money for golf because of this.
“College golf teams benefit from that world,” Ingles said. “You're thrust into an environment with a lot of well-connected and successful people.”
That doesn’t mean there won’t be sacrifices. Goss believes programs might still have to cut costs.
“You're going to have some schools whose athletic departments are going to ask them to do a little bit more regional travel just to cut costs,” Goss said.
While NIL has had a greater impact on the revenue-generating sports, it has started to gain momentum in college golf. Texas’ Ianello says she appreciates what NIL does for the players.
“It's been a great resource for a lot of the top amateurs to get more exposure to club company sponsorships and to build their brand before they get to the LPGA Tour,” Ianello said.
At the same time, some coaches believe the NIL collectives (nonprofits, independent of schools, composed of donors and businesses to compensate the student-athletes) have gotten out of control. Schools are not allowed to recruit with NIL, but the independent collectives raise money to attract student-athletes. This created a pay-for-play environment, which Goss said heavily imbalanced competition. He likened recruiting with these unregulated collectives to the “Wild West.”
“If you're a school that has a great relationship with companies and donors that can support it in a legitimate way, then you still have the ability to help your players.”
Pat Goss, director of golf at Northwestern
“There became a great disparity in how much teams were investing to get players to campus,” Goss said.
The legal settlement aims to ensure that all NIL deals are legitimate and of fair-market value. A clearinghouse would have the ability to approve or deny deals based on these factors. Goss thinks it would bring some level of fairness back to the college game.
“It absolutely will bring the playing field back to what it was before the collectives,” Goss said. “If you're a school that has a great relationship with companies and donors that can support it in a legitimate way, then you still have the ability to help your players.”
Crucially, the regulation of collectives doesn’t mean top players will lose the opportunity to get paid.
“If you are a player who's at a level where a major manufacturer, a club manufacturer or a company wants to truly use you for name, image and likeness, that will absolutely still be there for the top players,” Goss said.
On September 26, lawyers filed a revised version of the settlement after U.S. Judge Claudia Wilken in the Northern District of California refused to grant preliminary approval weeks earlier. At the time, her main concerns were the potential regulation of booster collectives and whether student-athletes might have opportunities for earnings limited.
“I found that taking things away from people is usually not too popular,” Wilken said.
Among the changes was the replacement of the term “booster” with “associated entity or individual.” However, the goals of the deal remain largely the same. There will be a crackdown on fake NIL deals that encourage a “pay for play” environment. Third-party NIL deals must also be approved by a clearinghouse to ensure they are of fair-market value.
Even with the federal judge’s preliminary approval, aspects of the settlement could change. The earliest these changes could take effect would be for the 2025-26 academic year.
Munez, a recent master’s graduate at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, can be followed on X and LinkedIn.