"IF YOU LIKE GOLF"
weekly online golf column
by
Chris Dortch

April 24, 2001

I ran into UTC athletic director Oval Jaynes at the Southern Conference golf tournament at Chattanooga Golf and Country Club last week and couldn't help but ask this question:

Can UTC's golf program ever ascend anywhere close to the level of its cross-state rival, East Tennessee State?

Jaynes wasn't sure how to answer, because he wasn't sure how ETSU, which has now won the last four SoCon championships and seven of the last eight and is consistently ranked in the Top 25, became a national power.

At ETSU, it starts with tradition. Back in the '60 and '70s, former coach Hal Morrison recruited a handful of players who would go on to careers on the PGA Tour, and a program was born. There wasn't anything particularly alluring about the school, other than the charm of Upper East Tennessee. At the time, the program didn't have access to the quality golf courses it has access to now.

Morrison's easy-going personality played a big part in ETSU's success. Good golfers wanted to play for him, and many did.

Inexplicably, the school dropped the program and cast Morrison adrift in the '80s. The athletic department at that time was in a money crisis, but no one ever gave a good reason why ETSU would drop one of the few sports that had brought it national attention.

After a couple of years of noted alumni such as Bobby Watkins, Mike Hulbert and Allen Strange raising hell, the school, buoyed by some promised financial support from the community, brought golf back from exile.

Everyone wanted the same quality of program the school had under Morrison's regime, but not everyone agreed Morrison, who had moved on to East Carolina, was the man for the job. Several former players wanted Morrison to be re-hired, but after an intense search, the job was given to Oklahoma State assistant Fred Warren, who had won the women's national championship and finished third with the men at TCU in an earlier stop.

Warren turned out to be an astute hire. With his connections, he quickly stocked ETSU's roster and built the Bucs into a national power in an amazingly short time. He developed strong recruiting ties in Ireland, which has produced several All-SoCon players and has netted two more potential stars in Warren's current recruiting class.

Warren, in his 15^th season, doesn't just recruit players and drive the van once they get to campus. He's a noted teacher who formerly worked for the Golf Digest schools. When a player has something go wrong with his swing, chances are Warren can fix it. The ETSU coach is also a disciplinarian who's been known to make his players run for various offenses, such as skipping class.

In addition to Warren, the program's other strength is the community, which has endowed all of ETSU's scholarships and continues its support with fund-raising tournaments. Several area courses allow the Bucs to play and practice, including The Ridges, The Virginian, Johnson City Country Club, Ridgefields and Graysburg Hills. There are plans to build a practice facility on campus.

Does UTC have the same sort of advantages? The answer is no. Not every course in town allows the Mocs to play. They have to drive all the way to Zeb Patten's driving range in East Brainerd to practice.

UTC should be able to field a quality golf team. Chattanooga has been called the hotbed for Tennessee golf by Tennessee Golf Association executive director Dick Horton. But the school has to make a commitment. It's tough for long-time coach Reed Sanderlin to develop recruit ties when he has to teach English in addition to coach. And his recruiting and travel budget doesn't compare to what Warren has.

Granted, it's rare for a smaller school such as ETSU to compete with the Arizona States, Wake Forests, Georgia Techs, Georgias, etc. but it can be done—five years ago, the Bucs finished third in the 1996 NCAA championships at The Honors.

Can UTC make that leap? If the focus on the program is there, from the administration and booster, it can.

For now, though, the gap between ETSU and UTC is enormous. The Bucs won the Southern Conference Tournament with a 54-hole total of 9 under par. The Mocs finished a distant 43 shots behind in seventh place.

The tournament was not without a bright spot for UTC. Rocky Mankin, a find for Sanderlin out of Ooltewah High School, shot par and finished sixth among individuals.

Clearly, the Mocs need more Rocky Mankins. But to find them, Sanderlin has to have the same advantages as Warren.

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