Expanding Opportunity
THE NCCGA STARTED WITH
A COUPLE OF REGIONS AND
ABOUT 40 CLUB TEAMS AND HAS
GROWN TO 28 REGIONS AND
MORE THAN 350 TEAMS.
“ We keep the costs really, really
low and affordable,” Hart says. “ We
never want to price prohibit a student
from playing.”
All tournaments, usually two to three
each semester depending on the region,
are held on weekends in specific regions
to help cut down travel costs and time.
Virginia schools compete in the Colo-
nial Region and the Capitol Region. The
NCCGA started with a couple of regions
and about 40 club teams and has grown
to 28 regions and more than 350 teams.
There is a national championship each
semester. Players qualify through the
region tournaments. There are player rank-
ings (based on scoring average) in each
Filling a
region, and it is all co-ed. Women play from
different tees, but they are competing with
the guys in every tournament. Individuals
who aren’t part of a team are also welcome.
life and a big football team. Both
parents went to Virginia Tech.
I thought I would go there and
try to walk on. I found out Tech
didn’t have walk-on tryouts.”
Jordan and his soon-to-be-
roommate Colton Grow, a Mills
Godwin High graduate who
faced a similar situation as a
golfer, decided to go to Virginia
Tech and play club golf.
“We knew it was a thing, and
we had looked at the scores
online and saw we’re better
than most of these players so
we can go there and play right
away and have fun,” Jordan
says. “We’re both extremely
competitive. I like having fun but
in a more serious environment. I
thought club golf could give me
that thing that I was missing.
And it did.”
Jordan, a VSGA member
at Willow Oaks Country Club,
shot a course-record 62 on
Virginia Tech’s campus course
during his first qualifier for the club team in
the fall of 2015. In the fall of 2017 he had the
top scoring average in the Colonial Region
(Virginia schools with club teams) and was
second nationally in the National Collegiate
Club Golf Association’s rankings. He had
won three of four events and was first-team
all-NCCGA.
The course-record qualifying round caught the
attention of Virginia Tech coach Jay Hardwick,
T
wo days before spring semester classes
started Joey Jordan was working on
his golf game in the warmth of the
indoor facility at Virginia Tech.
The temperature was frigid and the wind “just
cut through me like knives” the Hokies senior from
Richmond said of the weather outside.
Eighteen months ago Jordan didn’t have
access to the varsity golf team’s indoor facility.
College golf for Jordan was as a member of
the school’s club sports golf team. There are
18
30 club sports teams at Virginia Tech that fall
under the Recreational Sports umbrella.
Jordan was a late developer on his Deep
Run High School teams that won a state
championship in the fall of 2013 and was state
runner-up in the fall of 2014.
“I couldn’t shoot in the 60s until [late in my
junior year] so I knew I wouldn’t get recruited,”
says Jordan, who received some offers from
Division III schools. “I really didn’t want to go to
a smaller school and sacrifice having a social
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