A team for the ages

There’s a good chance that you’ve never heard of a single member of the KU women’s golf team that just finished 21st at nationals in California.

And, really, that’s OK.

Golf, as you know, is not the most highly visible sport. Especially at the college level.

And these teams — men’s and women’s — are not marketed in quite the same way as the major college sports nor are they on ESPN weekly and at the center of the sports calendar for more than a week or two each year. At most.

Now, even if you can name a player or two on head coach Lindsay Kuhle’s team — and let’s face it, you might be able to because of the stellar year her Jayhawks just had — there’s an even better chance that you wouldn’t recognize any of them if they walked into the same gas station where you were grabbing a snack.

Ahhhh, college sports. The purest form of it, and the type that is quickly fading and in real jeopardy of disappearing altogether.

Let’s be clear here; there are currently no plans that I’m aware of to get rid of the college golf programs at any major Division I school. But as college athletics continues to turn toward more emphasis on money and less on the athlete experiences, it’s not hard to connect the dots and start to think about what the future might look like.

That, in many ways, is what makes what Kuhle’s Jayhawks just accomplished so special.

Six team tournament titles. Five individual titles, including the program’s first regional champion in sophomore Lyla Louderbaugh. Senior Lauren Clark won three in a row. And senior Lily Hirst picked up her first collegiate victory.

The team, as a whole, collected its highest finish (21st at nationals) and final national ranking (No. 21) in program history.

They did it for the love of the sport. They did it for each other. They did it for the chance to represent KU, themselves and their families in a way that gets real recognition.

And they did it in an incredible manner, one that will ring throughout the corners of KU’s athletic department for decades.

All of it without so much as a hint of talk about NIL or the transfer portal. Don’t get me wrong, two of KU’s most important players — Clark and Hirst — came to Kansas via the portal. But I talked to both of them a bunch — Kuhle, too — and never got the sense that their decision to enter the portal was about anything other than opportunity.

Turned out to be a good decision. Both for the players and for the KU program. Beyond that, both of them played multiple seasons at Kansas. Not just one.

So, yeah, this team should be celebrated for its stellar season in the way that any other high-achieving, elite, winning college program is celebrated from coast to coast.

But because of the way the team was constructed, the way they went to work, the way they won and where college athletics as a whole seems to be headed, this one sure feels like it deserves a little extra recognition than some of the others.

This one was old-school college sports. And it was cool to watch, cool to cover and cool to see that that’s still possible to find.