Aug. 3, 2007
NEW YORK, NY - As part of its annual College Golf Guide, Golf Digest released its rankings of the nation's top NCAA men's and women's golf teams. According to the publication's September issue, due on newsstands Aug. 7, the San Diego State men's golf team is rated as the 12th-best program for incoming student-athletes with dreams of playing golf professionally and No. 56th out of 400 for the program's equal emphasis on academic excellence and athletic achievement.
The Aztecs' No. 12 ranking in the Golf First category marked the highest of any school in the Mountain West Conference.
Golf Digest's College Golf Guide is designed to help high school students find the best schools for their needs. Golf Digest rates schools based on its established rankings system, which uses a 100-point scale to grade five different categories.
The first category is team adjusted score, which is used by the NCAA to select postseason teams. Player growth percentage or how players over the last four seasons improved their adjusted scoring averages over the previous season, as well as the combined improvement or decline of players who met a minimum number of rounds is the second category. The academic standing category is based on the statistics given by U.S. News & World Report's 2007 guidebook of America's Best Colleges. The final categories are climate, which takes into account the amount of playable days over the last 30 years, and the quality of a school's facilities and coaches.
The facilities and coaches category judges the difficulty and proximity of campus-affiliated courses used for non-tournament practice rounds; quality of up to seven additional courses used by a team; practice facilities at home courses and stand-alone facilities on or near campus; along with coaches' experience and past performance at the school.