It is well known that most professional golfers on the PGA Tour also played college golf prior to starting their pro careers. While many of them were highly recruited junior golfers, not all current superstars had an easy path into college golf. Some even started at smaller golf programs at the junior college level (such as Bubba Watson or Abraham Ancer) while others played division 2 golf for their entire college career (Eric Cole, Rocco Mediate, Lee Janzen to name a few). So there is definitely not only one way to make it to the top and there are very strong golf programs in every league or division. However, lets focus on the top players in the world at the moment. Here is a list of the top 20 players in the world and where they played in college:
- Scottie Scheffler (University of Texas)
- Rory McIlroy
- Jon Rahm (Arizona State University)
- Viktor Hovland (Oklahoma State University)
- Patrick Cantlay (UCLA)
- Xander Schauffele (San Diego State University)
- Max Homa (University of California Berkeley)
- Matt Fitzpatrick (Northwestern University)
- Brian Harman (University of Georgia)
- Wyndham Clark (University of Oregon)
- Collin Morikawa (University of California Berkeley)
- Tom Kim
- Jordan Spieth (University of Texas)
- Tyrrell Hatton
- Tommy Fleetwood
- Keegan Bradley (St. John’s University)
- Sepp Straka (University of Georgia)
- Jason Day
- Brooks Koepka (Florida State University)
- Sahith Theegala (Pepperdine University)
As you can see there are 15 of the top 20 players in the world who played college golf, which is 75%. This is also roughly the average of all PGA Tour players who played at the collegiate level at some point before turning pro. And by the way, the two best players of all time, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, also played college golf. While Jack played his college golf at Ohio State University, Tiger attended Stanford for two years, winning an incredible 11 tournaments, prior to turning pro. So as you can see, the college system is an ideal stepping stone for talented junior golfers who want to prepare themselves for a professional career.