May 15, 2024 • by Mikkel Bjerch-Andresen
While an athlete’s freshman year is usually an exciting and unforgettable experience, it is also often a challenging year of growth.
As a former college coach and general golf fan, I’ve kept a close eye on this collegiate golf season. Naturally, when sifting through the results week-to-week, my eye first filters the leaderboards for familiar names. Baylor, Texas Tech, and Stephen F. Austin are the schools I’ve coached at. As I still feel personally invested in these programs, I naturally scroll straight to one of these schools when they’re in the field.
Then, I usually tap to look at which players are playing for ‘my teams’, and how they’re doing. From there, I’ll probably glance at the overall team leaderboard to make a mental note of which teams are in form.
For me, the individual leaderboard rarely gets inspected. The only exception would be if one of my former players has a chance at winning a tournament individually. I find that the magic of college golf is the team aspect. But, even with my limited individual leaderboard-watching, Wenyi Ding’s and Jackson Koivun’s performances have hijacked my attention this year. Both players seem to be immune to the difficulty of being a freshman in college golf.
Let me try to provide some context to that: In looking through the National Collegiate Golf Rankings we find that 679 athletes in Men’s DI are tagged as ‘First Year’. Of these athletes, less than 0.6% are ranked in the top-50 after the regular season. Comparatively, 3.2% of ‘Fifth Year’ athletes are currently ranked in the top-50. There’s a clear connection between experience and individual performance when we look at the aggregate for Men’s DI golf.
New freshmen arriving on campus is the highlight of every Fall for a coach. While an athlete’s freshman year is usually an exciting and unforgettable experience, it is also often a challenging year of growth.
There are countless aspects to adjust to when enrolling in college that take time. In addition to adjusting to living away from home, fitting in with the team, and staying on top of classes, college golf is just different from junior golf. The courses are longer and firmer, hole locations are harder, and there’s more attention and pressure.
As the environment is different, transitioning to college golf often requires some additional skills from the player. Simply making the top-5 on your team is a tall enough order for most freshmen with decorated junior careers.
The best now-professional player I’ve gotten to coach as a freshman is Ludvig Åberg. Ludvig came to Texas Tech as a top-50 ranked WAGR player who had already made a cut on the DP World Tour. While competing as a junior golfer he showcased his patented, efficient pre-shot routines and simultaneously carried himself with maturity.
Not much has changed with Ludvig Aberg’s swing or demeanor
Even back then, he was hitting the driver out of the middle of the face at swing speeds of around 120 mph on command. If you were to teleport back to the Summer of 2019 before he enrolled at Texas Tech to watch Ludvig play, almost everything would look the same as it does today.
In the past five years since he was a freshman, he has gained some muscle and improved his short-game, but not much has changed with his swing or demeanor.
But even Ludvig took time adjusting to college golf. Like any freshman, he was thrust into an unfamiliar environment and had to adjust. Living 5,000 miles away from his home in Sweden, adjusting to new grasses, and passing classes taught in English all took time adjusting to.
I recently looked through his freshman year scores and found that he averaged 73.8 during his first semester at Texas Tech. He never panicked but kept working steadily on his game. When things had “settled” by the start of the second semester, he started shooting lower scores and ended up being a captain’s pick for the Arnold Palmer Cup that Summer.
We’ve all witnessed Ludvig’s fantastic collegiate career and immediate success after college despite his freshman year adversity.
Freshman year is supposed to be tough even for the best players, but Jackson and Wenyi are defying what the numbers and my coaching experience is telling me.
While I was at Baylor, I had the pleasure of getting to know Jackson through the recruiting process. He ended up signing with Auburn, but I’ve followed him on social media and rooted for his success ever since his recruitment. Therefore, he’s been on my radar the entire season. Jackson’s Freshman campaign has been unbelievable.
His worst individual finish is 19th. He has placed in the top-6 in all the other events this year. He’s even got two individual wins this year including his most recent win at the SEC Championships where he won by 6 strokes in arguably the best golf conference in the country.
Last but certainly not least, he’s led the Auburn Tigers to several team wins throughout the season (including the SEC Men's Championship) and their current #1 National ranking.
Wenyi had my full attention when he shot 27 under in 54 holes
Wenyi initially blipped on my radar when he finished runner-up in his first collegiate stroke play event at the NIT in January. He had my full attention, however, when he followed that performance up by shooting 27 under in 54 holes at the Amer Ari Intercollegiate and winning by nine strokes. I believe that is an NCAA scoring record — an unbelievable accomplishment for his second collegiate event ever.
Wenyi has gone on to finish in the top-10 individually in all but one event. He holds the #1 individual ranking in the country, and his Sun Devils are ranked third nationally as a team.
What both of these players have accomplished this year in top-tier collegiate fields, is incredible. I’m not one to make bold predictions about the future, but I’d argue these two freshmen would currently be placed nicely in the FedEx Cup standings with the seasons they’ve had.
While they’re in college, you can watch them for free almost weekly. I’d highly encourage you to check out Jackson and Wenyi at their Regional sites or at the National Championship. College golf is stacked with talent and as a spectator you’re able to get a much closer look at the players than when attending tour events.
So, here’s to a great post-season of NCAA golf. Best of luck to all the players and coaches competing this year! Enjoy spectating and remember - take a glance at those individual leaderboards. You might just get to see some young talents beating the odds.