Virginia Golfer May / Jun 2020 | Page 22

A SUDDEN END WITH NCAA SPRING SPORTS CANCELED IN 2020, VIRGINIA SENIORS AND COACHES ARE SCRAMBLING TO FIGURE OUT THEIR NEXT STEPS BY DAMIEN SORDELETT Carter Morgan spent a good bit of time on the practice green at Mission Inn Resort & Club before his practice round began for the Mission Inn Spring Spectacular in mid-March. The Old Dominion University senior wanted any advantage he could find in analyzing the speed and the firmness of the greens in Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla. He was in the process of finishing his putting practice when Monarchs coach Murray Rudisill gathered the team together and informed them of unthinkable news—Conference USA, ODU’s athletic home, was indefinitely suspending play because of COVID-19, the disease caused by a novel coronavirus that forced professional leagues worldwide and collegiate conferences in the United States to immediately stop play. The coronavirus pandemic ultimately resulted in the NCAA canceling its winter and spring sports championships. Conferences have followed suit in canceling the remainder of play for the academic year, leaving golfers in their final season with an unfulfilled conclusion. The gravity of the situation began sinking in for Morgan, a VSGA member at Hobbs Hole Golf Course. The senior, in his final year of eligibility, saw the end of his collegiate career flash before his eyes. “Right there, in that moment, I was kind of thinking, ‘Dang, I didn’t expect my career to end on a putting green warming up before a round,’” he recalled. “I was pretty upset, I was pretty heartbroken.” LIKE A TON OF BRICKS The news of suspended play and cancellations spread quickly across the sporting world, and the college golf programs from the Commonwealth were not immune to the ramifications. Most programs were scattered across the country either completing or just about ready to start spring break tournaments, and the impact of the news hit them all with a ton of bricks, as it did for Morgan. Virginia Tech, like ODU, was going through practice rounds in preparation for the Schenkel Invitational in Statesboro, Ga. The players spent the first of two practice rounds hearing the news of the virus’ spread, and they went through the second practice round on March 12 focused more on the virus than golf. That night, the Tech players were on their way back to Blacksburg following the tournament’s cancellation. “It was quite something to take in,” said Tech junior Connor Burgess, a member at Boonsboro Country Club. CHRIS LANG 20 V IRGINIA G OLFER | M AY/J UNE 2020 vsga.org