A
SUDDEN
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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