Deep Dives: Rising Freshman in College Golf, 2024-25

It's that time of the year again. Most top teams in college golf are playing this week. Close followers of amateur golf will pore over Golfstat (or i guess, Scoreboard by Clippd) to see how the line-ups shake out for each team's first event.  It seems like most teams have extensive, 5-6 round qualifying to see who is "on the plane" for the first tournament. And if you're like me, it's interesting to see who is playing #1 through #5. The line-ups give us a little insight into how the players are playing heading into the season.

Of particular interest (to me, at least) is to see how incoming freshman perform in the fall. Can they make the leap to college golf? Can they crack the starting five? Could they have a freshman season like Jackson Koivun had at Auburn last year?

Many of the top graduating high school seniors tend to play a blend of junior and amateur events leading up to college, presumably to prepare for the elevated level of competition they will face in college golf. Scroll the Elite Am series or US Amateur leaderboard and you're sure to recognize names of golfers migrating from junior golf to amateur golf.

Is success in these amateur events a harbinger of success in college golf during their freshman season?  Let's take a closer look.

Each year, Golfweek publishes a preseason All-American team with 10-player first, second and third teams. If we assume these are more or less the 30 best players in college golf entering the season, can we glean any information on how rising freshman performed against these 30 players in the events leading up to college? Let's first look at the freshman class from last fall.

It's clear to see Jackson Koivun and Wenyi Ding had success against the top collegiate players in the months leading up to school. Specifically, both compared favorably to the 2nd and 3rd team preseason selections and were slightly below .500 against the first-team selections.  Both went on to be first-team All-American selections at the end of the season, with Koivun earning the Phil Mickelson award for Freshman of the Year and sweeping the three player of the year awards (earning 11 PGATourU accelerated points in the process).  One thing to note is Koivun was a third-team preseason selection and the only freshman on one of the preseason teams.

Max Herendeen had some success against the Preseason All-American selections, with a 30% head-to-head winning percentage. He continued to improve under the tutelage of Illinois coach Mike Small and ended up a second teamer. And perhaps proving that success in Amateur tourneys in the summer before school isn't an absolute must, Ryder Cowan had a 2-26-1 record against the three preseason teams and made the All-Freshman team with Oklahoma.

With last year's freshman as a backdrop, let's take a look at this year's crop of incoming freshman:

Tennessee's Jackson Herrington was a Golfweek preseason third team selection. However, based on his head-to-head record against the other preseason members this year, it looks like Golfweek may be selling him short.  While we're not ready to proclaim him the next Koivun, don't be surprised if he's a first teamer and this year's Mickelson Award winner.  [Here at DRVN.Golf, we are big fans of any lefties who also share a nickname with 1980s Chicago Bears linemen, though we're still bitter that Walter Payton never got his touchdown in the Super Bowl.] And look out for Wheaton Ennis from Texas A&M, who had above .500 records head-to-head against all three preseason teams.  Jay Leng (Stanford), Billy Davis (Auburn) and Nick Gross (Alabama) had summers similar to Herendeen last year and could make a similar leap. Note: not shown is Stanford freshman TK Chantananuwat due to limited head-to-head action against the preseason teams. However, he enters college as the 56th-ranked player on WAGR and has a lot of success in professional events in Asia, so keep him on your radar.

One thing that is unique in this summer's Amateur events is the prevalence of non-graduating juniors in the fields.  Rather than listing them by name, I'll just highlight their respective records below.  It's clear there is some special talent brewing among the junior ranks, already demonstrating success against the best amateurs in the world.

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