NCAA Champions Receive USGA Exemptions For U.S. Amateur And U.S. Women's Amateur
February 24, 2004 Far Hills, N.J. - The individual winners of the men's and women's NCAA Division I Golf Championships will earn an exemption into the next U.S. Amateur and U.S. Women's Amateur championships, respectively, the United States Golf Association has announced. The exemptions will begin with the 2004 championship season.

The NCAA men's championship is scheduled from June 1-4 at the Cascades Golf Course at The Homestead in Hot Springs, Va. The NCAA women's championship is set for May 18-21 at the Grand National Lake Course at Auburn University in Auburn, Ala.

The U.S. Amateur Championship, with a starting field of 312, will be played from Aug. 16-22 at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y. The U.S. Women's Amateur, with a starting field of 156, will be played from Aug. 9-15 at The Kahkwa Club in Erie, Pa. Both championships start with 36 holes of stroke play before the top 64 scorers advance to match play.

Nine Amateur winners also have been NCAA champions, starting with Harvard's Chandler Egan, who won the 1902 NCAA title and the 1904 and 1905 Amateur. The most recent double winner was Tiger Woods of Stanford, who won the 1996 NCAA and three consecutive Amateurs from 1994-96.

Woods is also one of six NCAA titlists to win a U.S. Open. The other five are Tom Kite, Hale Irwin, Jack Nicklaus, Scott Simpson and Curtis Strange.

In a much shorter 22-year history, four women have won both the NCAA and the Women's Amateur titles, including 2003 Women's Amateur champion Virada Nirapathpongporn, who won the 2002 NCAA title playing for Duke. College golf for women was organized by other administrative bodies prior to 1982. Annika Sorenstam, who won the NCAA title while at Arizona in 1991, is one of two NCAA individual champions who went on to win a U.S. Women's Open. She won the Women's Open in 1995 and 1996. The other was Kathy Baker, who won the 1982 NCAA and the 1985 Women's Open.



WINNERS OF NCAA AND U.S. AMATEUR (9)

Chandler Egan (Harvard) - 1902 NCAA, 1904-05 U.S. Amateur (2)
Jess Sweetser (Yale) - 1920 NCAA, 1922 U.S. Amateur
Harvie Ward (North Carolina) - 1949 NCAA, 1955-56 U.S. Amateur (2)
Jack Nicklaus (Ohio State) - 1961 NCAA, 1959, 1961 U.S. Amateur (2)
Bob Murphy (Florida) - 1966 NCAA, 1965 U.S. Amateur
Scott Verplank (Oklahoma State) - 1986 NCAA, 1984 U.S. Amateur
Phil Mickelson (Arizona State) - 1989-90, 1992 NCAA (3), 1990 U.S. Amateur
Justin Leonard (Texas) - 1994 NCAA, 1992 U.S. Amateur
Tiger Woods (Stanford) - 1996 NCAA, 1994-96 U.S. Amateur (3)



WINNERS OF NCAA AND U.S. OPEN (6)

Jack Nicklaus (Ohio State) - 1961 NCAA, 1962, 1967, 1972, 1980 U.S. Open (4)
Hale Irwin (Colorado) - 1967 NCAA, 1974, 1979, 1990 U.S. Open (3)
Tom Kite (Texas) - 1972 NCAA, 1992 U.S. Open
Curtis Strange (Wake Forest) - 1974 NCAA, 1988-89 U.S. Open (2)
Scott Simpson (Southern California) - 1976-77 NCAA, 1987 U.S. Open
Tiger Woods (Stanford) -- 1996 NCAA, 2000, 2002 U.S. Open (2)



WINNERS OF NCAA AND U.S. WOMEN'S AMATEUR (4)

Pat Hurst (San Jose State) - 1989 NCAA, 1990 U.S. Women's Amateur
Vicki Goetze-Ackerman (Georgia) - 1992 NCAA, 1989, 1992 U.S. Women's Amateur (2)
Grace Park (Arizona State) - 1999 NCAA, 1998 U.S. Women's Amateur
Virada Nirapathpongporn (Duke) - 2002 NCAA, 2003 U.S. Women's Amateur




WINNERS OF NCAA AND U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN (2)

Kathy (Baker) Guadagnino (Tulsa) - 1982 NCAA, 1985 U.S. Women's Open
Annika Sorenstam (Arizona) - 1991 NCAA, 1995-96 U.S. Women's Open (2)