“
I’ve been
playing a lot of
golf because it’s
pretty much all
there is to do.
—Peter Gasperini of Radford University.
“
from VWU to ODU, so he is working on
finding out if he will be brought back for
the 2021 season. If he is, he will adjust
his class schedule so he takes 12 credits
in the fall and then the minimum of
three credit hours in the semester prior
to graduation.
“Mainly for me right now, I’m just trying
to get all the academic stuff straight
to make sure I have enough credits to be
eligible,” he explained. “I’m hoping within
the next couple of weeks, I can get more
of a clear cut answer on whether I will be
back for next fall or not.”
CASE BY CASE
If Gasperini, a two-time VSGA Amateur
semifinalist, and Morgan, who qualified
for last year’s U.S. Amateur and won the
VCU Invitational last fall, are playing
for a college golf team next season, that
would be quite a recruiting haul for any
team to add to the returning players and
incoming freshmen.
“You’re going to see some isolated situations
where you’re going to have some
really strong teams if they can afford that
piece,” said Hetzel, a finalist in last year’s
VSGA Women’s Amateur. “I think there’s
a big misunderstanding by just average
college sports fans of where scholarships
come from. Scholarships are endowments—that’s
donated money—so it’s up
to the universities, to the athletic departments
to be able to pay for those.
“It’s going to require a lot of creativity
quite honestly to figure out how to accommodate
those seniors going forward. We
have some players who I would love to
have for another year and would absolutely
accommodate the same amount
of scholarship they’re on. I’ve got some
other players, they know I love them and
I’m going to miss them, but it might be just
time for them to move on. It’s going to be a
case-by-case situation.
“With this extra year for everybody,
four years from now, you’re still going to
see student-athletes competing across all
spring sports that they’ll have some type
of corona story, if you will.”
STAYING SHARP
Morgan, Gasperini, and other golfers
across the state are finding ways to stay
in golf shape for whenever events resume.
Most golfers at state institutions were
planning on participating in VSGA events
over the summer, and those events—
including all VSGA championships, One-
Day Events, Junior Golf Circuit events
and education events have been postponed
through at least the end of May.
CHRIS LANG
22 V IRGINIA G OLFER | M AY/J UNE 2020
vsga.org