PMP25: How To Watch A College Golf Tournament

This is the first of the Pick My Post articles for the 2025 fundraiser. All of these will be unlocked and open for anyone to read. With the NCAA Urbana Regional coming up on Monday, this basically had to be first. The request: tips on how to watch a college golf tournament.

Except I don't remember who asked the question. I don't know if it was a comment under a golf article (I looked but couldn't find anything) or a comment on Slack or even an email. But someone at some point this spring asked a question like this. Here's my best re-creation of the question:

I plan to attend the NCAA regional in May. When you do the fundraiser this spring, I plan to donate and my question will be this: How do you watch an NCAA golf tournament? Where do I go? What do I do?

~Contributor Unknown

You have come to the right place. There's no human on earth better suited to answer this question. I've played Atkins, I've attended a golf tournament at Atkins (last year), and I've covered double-digit NCAA golf tournaments. I have every answer you're seeking. Let's do this.

First, the basics for this tournament. It will take place Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday next week (the 12th, 13th, and 14th) at Atkins Golf Club in Urbana. Atkins is the former Stone Creek Golf Club. It was donated to the University by the Atkins family in 2020. The University renovated the course (lengthening a number of the tee boxes and adding new bunkers) for this very purpose: so that Champaign-Urbana would have a golf course that could host tournaments like this.

There will be 13 teams at this regional. And they're all seeded 1-13. It's similar to the NCAA Basketball Tournament: many of the lower seeds (like Wright State and Pacific) won their conference tournament to earn a berth in the regional. And then there are at-large bids. Since UCLA won the Big Ten, the Illini are an at-large team and the 3-seed at this regional.

One benefit of hosting a regional (and this differs completely from men's basketball): you are placed in your own region regardless of your seed. It's not like the women's basketball tournament where the top seeds host the first two rounds. The regionals are determined in the fall and then the hosts (if they qualify, obviously) are placed in their own regional. So Auburn is at the Auburn Regional, Florida State is at the Tallahassee Regional, and so-on. Because Atkins is in Urbana, this one is called the Urbana Regional.

There will be 74 golfers at the event; five from each of the 13 teams that qualified and then nine individuals. The NCAA wants individuals whose teams did not qualify for regionals to have a chance to qualify for nationals so there will be nine golfers (three threesomes) representing their school by themselves. Five teams move on to nationals plus one individual (the best score from a golfer whose team isn't moving on). That single player moving on to nationals can come from those nine players who entered the regional as an individual or from one of the teams that fails to make the top-5. So it's always a moving target on the final day.

If you're planning to attend, that likely won't concern you. As the 3-seed (and playing on our home course), Illinois should be one of the teams finishing in the top five and moving on. So any scoreboard watching you'll be doing will be the team scores, not the individual scores. And here's how that works.

Your team score is your best four rounds from your five golfers. The worst score is the drop score. And that's each round, so someone can go from being the best score one round to the drop score the next round. Three rounds, drop the worst score each round, and that's your team score at the end. The top five team scores move on to the NCAA Championships at La Costa in two weeks. And if there's a tie for fifth, there's a playoff. Those can be fun, but hopefully you don't have to experience that because watching the fifth guy try to make a five foot putt to send his team to La Costa is three times more harrowing than a last-second field goal or free throw. At least for me.

NOW you know how it all works. Time to get to what this question was really asking: how to watch.

The first day they tee off by seeds. As the 3-seed, Illinois will be paired with 1-seed Oklahoma State and 2-seed North Carolina. Each coach seeds his guys 1 through 5 and they go off the tees in reverse order. They tee off on 1 and 10 at the same time, so at 8:00 am on Monday, the #5 guy from Oklahoma State, the #5 guy from North Carolina, and the #5 guy from Illinois will tee off on the 1st tee (while, at the same time, the #5 guys from Texas Tech, Long Beach State, and UNLV will be teeing off on the tenth tee). Ten minutes later the #4 guys will go off both tees, then the #3 guys, and... you get it.

This is key because college golf is about watching your five guys. For the entire day, they'll be spread out across 2-3 holes. I'm going to assume that Mike Small will send out his #1 through #5 based on their individual scores at the Big Ten Championships, so in reverse order, the Illini will see Trey Marrion tee off first, then Jackson Buchanan, then Max Herendeen, then Ryan Voois, and then Jake Birdwell. So if you get there at, say, 9:00 am on Monday (an hour after Marrion teed off but only 20 minutes after Birdwell teed off), then the Illini will likely be spread out between the 2nd and 4th holes. It would be something like... Marrion on the 4th green, Buchanan on the 3rd green, Herendeen in the 3rd fairway, Voois en route from the 2nd green to the 3rd tee, and Birdwell in the 2nd fairway. That spacing lasts the entire day.

Which means that a lot of college golf fans will find places to watch everyone come through and then, once the fifth guy has come through, they'll jump ahead to another hole to watch all five guys come through. For a compact course like Baltimore Country Club, there as a lot of this: stand at the 4th green and watch everyone, then move to the 6th green/7th tee and watch everyone, then move to the 9th green and watch everyone, then walk over to the 13th green and watch everyone come through, then go to 16 green and 18 green. You could watch all five golfers and only take 800 steps since the routing kept bringing all the holes back to one central location.

Or you could walk with groups. That's one of the best parts of college golf (and the question I get the most). People who have attended professional golf tournaments are familiar with ropes sectioning off most of the course from spectators. That's not the case for college tournaments. For highly congested areas like around the clubhouse where the 1st and 10th tees will be, I'm sure there will be ropes, but once you're out on the course, you self-police. Don't walk out on the fairway (obviously). Don't stand right on the edge of the green while someone is hitting towards the green (obviously). Don't make any movement in the eye-line of someone hitting a putt and don't talk to your friend while someone is teeing off. But beyond that, you're free to walk the edges of the course with the competitors.

This is what you'll see the parents doing. I'm guessing there will be 10 Wright State fans there: 2 parents walking with each of the five Wright State groups. That's the typical flow of a college golf tournament. Fans standing around a few of the holes watching everyone come through and parents walking with one group all 18 holes.

"But Robert", you say, "I want to know specifically how I should follow this tournament at Atkins." Well, I made you a map. If you're going on Monday (or Tuesday or Wednesday), press and hold this image and save it to your phone.

I added the numbers to all the holes there and, as you can see, Atkins is pretty spread out. The 7th green and the 15th green are about as far away as two holes can get on one property. I'm here to help you sort it out.

If you're just wanting to go watch some golf – a few holes – then the green star is your spot. It's why I made it the biggest symbol. This is just behind the clubhouse. That thing I wrote above about watching everyone come through and then shifting to a different spot to watch everyone come through. The 6th green and the 9th green sitting back-to-back creates the perfect spot for this. If you plan to get there about 90 minutes after the first Illini tee time, you can easily walk from the parking lot to the 6th green, watch all five Illini players come through, and then walk 75 paces to the 9th green and the first Illini player should just be approaching the tee. It's a par-3 so you can stand by the green and watch their tee shot and their chips/putts.

If you're not wanting to just stand around – if you want to get out and see the course – I added stars to show you good places to target. If I'm not walking with a single player, I like to pick spots where I can see two players at one time. At the tournament at Atkins last April I spent a lot of time at the yellow star there by the 8th green. I could watch the approach shots into 8 (and the putts) and then I could walk a few paces and watch the tee shots on 9. It's a par 3 so I could look up at the green and see where the shot landed, then I could return to 8-green to watch the next approach shots come in.

For that tournament last spring I also spent a lot of time at the light blue (cyan) star. I'd watch the tee shots on 11 (I like seeing these college golfers bomb it on a par 5) and then I'd walk the short walk to 13 green and watch approach shots and putts. Here, I'll just attach the image again so you don't have to keep scrolling up.

The red star is a restroom and a snack bar. It's also a great place to watch all of the groups come through on 14 and, once the last Illini group is through, the first Illini player will probably be approaching the 17th tee. Restrooms, snacks, and two holes where you can watch all five players come through back-to-back, that's probably the prime spot out on the course.

If you want to do the "watch two holes" thing like I mentioned above, the purple star (3rd green/4th tee) and the orange star (11th green/12 tee) would be fun. The 3rd is a drivable par 4. I doubt many players use that left fairway at all (I do). So behind the 3rd green is a great spot to stand and watch them try to reach the green in one (plus you can also see the tee shots on the par-3 fourth). It's a similar situation at the orange star by 11 and 12. If they move the tees up on 12 for one of the days (to let the players try to go over the lake to try to reach the green in one), I'll be standing right there to watch the 11th green and those 12th-tee water-clearance attempts.

And, of course, at the end of every round, you want to be near the 18th green. It's where everyone eventually gathers (the walking parents, the coaches, the players who have finished). The 18th green often provides the drama, so I try to get there for at least the last three players coming through. I'm guessing for most rounds at this tournament I'll be at the red star watching the 14th and 17th and then, after the last Illini player tees off on 17, I'll skip ahead to the 18th green to watch the final 2-3 guys come in.

A few more notes:

• Charge your phone. There's no scoreboards on the course (there's sometimes one near the 18th green but it's mostly pointless to the walking spectator). You'll be checking this online scoreboard constantly to see what the other Illini players are doing.
• Speaking of the online scoreboard, just remember that there are often mistakes. It's just volunteers entering the scores after each hole. They sometimes fat-thumb the wrong score. Wait for it to update if you see something weird.
• When you're doing something like the "skip ahead" I suggested earlier. You'll mostly be walking on cart paths, so just make sure you're not in some player's eye-line when they're hitting a shot or a putt. If an Illini player is teeing off first on a par-3, don't go walk ahead to the green after he hits. Wait for the other two players to hit. Be a Milford Man.
• Yes, wear orange and blue and cheer the made putts. It will create a similar home field advantage to Memorial Stadium and the State Farm Center. I still remember how North Carolina's David Ford (who will be the best player at this event) was in awe of all the Illini fans at the NCAA Championships at Grayhawk in 2023. He wanted that vibe for North Carolina so bad (but they had maybe 2 non-parent fans there).
• Be careful when assuming a long made putt is a birdie. That player might have been in the woods on their tee shot (a shot you did not see) and that putt is for par or bogey, not birdie. Many of those scoring errors (or faulty tweets from media) come from stuff like that. Everyone two-putts, the volunteer assumes it's three pars, and instead of confirming with the players, they just enter 4-4-4 when one player actually took a 6. Before you text your buddy "Max just birdied 17!", pause to think if you know that you know that it was a birdie. If you didn't see every shot, you don't yet know. It's so easy to lose track of it.
• The second and third day they set the tee times based on the leaderboard. So the evening before you plan to go, check that scoreboard link above (go to "tee times" and choose the round you're wanting to see) to find out when the Illini golfers will be teeing off.
• No, there's no admission fee or anything. Just park at the clubhouse and then go watch some golf.

My God, I'm nearly at 2,700 words. Sorry so long. BUT, I think that's everything you need to know. I'll try to check back in with this post and answer any questions in the comments. And before you ask, no, I'm not going to drive the fire truck there, park it at 18, and hit the siren every time a North Carolina player is standing over a putt. I should, but I won't.

See you there.