Every couple of weeks this spring, members of the BYU men’s golf team have played the back nine at Provo’s Riverside Country Club in the early morning hours alone, just them, their thoughts, and an observant coach every now and then.
Those rounds are occasionally counted in a qualifying setting, so they aren’t just for practice. But more importantly, the situations are set up to prepare the golfers for what they will face this week at the NCAA Golf Championships at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California.
For the fifth time since they first had to do it in 2018 in central Oklahoma, BYU golfers will begin play in the NCAAs on Thursday, a day ahead of the other 29 teams in the field.
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For religious reasons, BYU will not play on Sunday, which is when the tournament’s third round is scheduled to be played. So the Cougars will play their “third round” on Thursday, alone, teeing off at approximately 2 p.m. MDT after the other teams get in their practice rounds.
It is nothing new, and something both BYU golf teams — men’s and women’s — have been doing since the NCAA changed the format of the national championships nearly a decade ago.
“I will tell you this: Nobody should be upset (with the BYU accommodation). They have seen how our teams have been good teams. The other coaches know that. And we have performed terribly on Thursday every single time.”
— BYU director of golf Todd Miller
“We are ready for it. If people want to complain about it and say we shouldn’t be able to do it, we are fine. We are kinda used to that,” said BYU director of golf Todd Miller. “And if eventually the NCAA says we don’t want to deal with you, and this whole thing, we would understand that, too.
“But we are really grateful at this point that the NCAA and all the golf coaches in the (Golf Coaches Association of America) are willing to deal with our religious beliefs.”
Does the accommodation give BYU an unfair advantage? Really, a lot depends on what weather conditions will be like. If conditions are easier on Thursday than Sunday, when the Cougars become spectators, then sure.
But Miller says history has shown that the other scenarios BYU players must deal with while playing alone on Thursday offsets any other perceived advantages. For instance, playing in the late afternoon is rarely more favorable than playing in the morning, and the BYU golfers won’t have playing competitors to get a read on putts, wind direction, etc.
That’s why they’ve practiced playing alone.
Junior Tyson Shelley, who played in the 2022 and 2023 NCAA championships, also expressed gratitude to the NCAA for the religious accommodation that allows BYU to play and said the Cougars are just going to “embrace the situation” and deal with it in a “thankful and professional” manner.
“It is really interesting. You have the course all to yourself and you look at the hole behind you, and you have a teammate, and you look in front of you, and you have a teammate,” said Shelley, who shot a 76 in this Thursday round in 2022 at Grayhawk Golf Club in Arizona and an 80 in his Thursday round at the same club in 2023. “You never get that in any other tournament. You are in a onesome, and you just have to embrace it. … We have been simulating it, and that national experience, most of the season. We are just going to go out there and embrace it and just have as much fun as we can playing by ourselves.”
BYU’s five golfers Thursday will be seniors Zac Jones and Cole Ponich, juniors Simon Kwon and Shelley, and sophomore Peter Kim. All five are from Utah high schools. None of them have played the La Costa course before.
The Cougars played at nearby Torrey Pines on Tuesday afternoon, and were scheduled to play their one and only practice round at La Costa on Wednesday. After the other teams get in their practice rounds on Thursday morning, the holes will be changed to the exact same location they will be on Sunday, and the Cougars will begin teeing off, one by one.
“If we play great on Thursday, there is going to be plenty of trash talk, and we have known that all along,” Miller said. “There are going to be people saying we shouldn’t be able to do it. But we just have to embrace whatever comes and move on.”
In 2022, the Cougars shot 10-over-par 290 on Thursday, 295 on Friday and 302 on Saturday and finished in 21st place. The top 15 teams through 54 holes make the cut for Monday’s fourth round, and the top eight teams after Monday’s round advance to the match play portion of the tournament.
In 2023, BYU shot 303 on Thursday, 289 on Friday and 287 on Saturday and finished in 23rd place.
“I will tell you this: Nobody should be upset (with the BYU accommodation),” Miller said. “They have seen how our teams have been good teams. The other coaches know that. And we have performed terribly on Thursday every single time. So there shouldn’t be one person out there saying this is an advantage for BYU. … Maybe we are not in the eight that make match play with our ranking, but we definitely have good enough teams to make that initial cut and be in the top 15 on Monday. And we haven’t even sniffed it.”
BYU didn’t make it out of regionals last year. This year, the Cougars bounced back from a ninth-place finish at the Big 12 tournament to win the Reno (Nevada) Regional, and has plenty of momentum heading into the finals.
Is this the year BYU moves on?
“We feel like we are peaking at the right time, and everybody is confident and playing their best,” Shelley said.
The Skyline High product who will get married in June and Miller both said that having BYU’s director of mental performance, Dr. Bobby Low, with them in Reno made a big difference.
“We are ready for it. If people want to complain about it and say we shouldn’t be able to do it, we are fine. We are kinda used to that. And if eventually the NCAA says we don’t want to deal with you, and this whole thing, we would understand that, too.”
— BYU director of golf Todd Miller
“We had a lot of distractions, delays, interferences and setbacks at regionals. We had snow, rain, wind, you name it,” Shelley said. “We never complained. We just looked at it in a positive way and had a lot of fun with it. Then we ended up winning it.”
Miller said an example of Low’s impact came the first day, when Kwon was about to tap in a shot and then saw the wind blow his golf ball 20 feet from the hole. The Skyline High product and Cal transfer, who is Miller’s nephew and the grandson of Hall of Fame golfer Johnny Miller, calmly sank the 20-footer without complaining.
“And that is what I am hoping for with this Sunday round on Thursday, that they come out with the same mental strength, that same toughness in their minds, and say ‘hey, we are going to embrace being different.’ What we do is different. We know that,” Miller said. “We are going to embrace it and whatever storm comes, it comes. We will be ready.”
After all, they’ve already gotten used to golfing alone.
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