Summarizing the D1 Golf Roster Data
A complete look at how DI golf recruiting has transformed in the last 20 years
Over the past few months, I’ve published a series of data-driven posts examining how Division I golf rosters have changed over the last 20 years. I built extensive datasets covering both men’s and women’s programs, scraping over 40,000 player-year entries for men and nearly 30,000 for women.
This is the post combining the findings from men’s and women’s golf. Here’s what the data tells us.
The Big Picture: International Recruiting Reshapes the Landscape
The single most striking trend across both men’s and women’s golf is the surge in international recruiting. Most of us who follow college golf would probably have guessed a shift towards international recruiting over the past 20 years. However, the magnitude of the shift was eye-opening even for me (who is an ex-international college golfer and college golf coach).
The data reveals a fundamental reordering of the college golf recruiting pipeline over the past 20 years.
Men’s DI Golf:
U.S.-born freshmen dropped from over 85% in the mid-2000s to below 75% today
In raw numbers, there are 500-600 fewer U.S.-born players on rosters now compared to the early 2000s
Power-4 programs crossed a threshold: U.S. freshmen now account for less than 50% of incoming classes
That means the average Power-4 men’s signing class in the dataset is now majority international according to the scraped data
Women’s DI Golf:
U.S.-born freshmen fell from roughly 80% in the mid-2000s to the mid-60s today
About 200 fewer U.S.-born women on rosters compared to 20 years ago
This decline happened despite an 11% increase in total DI roster spots for women
Power-4 women’s programs also crossed 50%, with international players now dominating recruiting classes
Where Are the International Players Coming From?
The composition of international recruiting has evolved considerably.
Men’s Golf: Europe Dominates
For men, Europe accounts for more than half of all international recruits. The UK remains the single largest source, with 1,220 athletes across the 20-year span (17.5% of international players). Canada follows with 1,004 athletes (just over 14%).
But the real story is the second wave.
Traditional golf nations like Germany, France, Sweden, and Spain saw sharp increases in the early 2000s before leveling off around 2010-2015. Each of these countries has sent 74 or more freshmen to DI programs in the dataset over the two decades.
Now, smaller European countries are surging. Ireland, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Iceland, Finland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Portugal, and more. When you group these non-traditional European countries together, the graph shows the sharpest recent incline in DI athletes.
Asia also contributes meaningfully. An interesting way of looking at shifts in Asian recruiting is through names. Surnames like Lee, Kim, and Park have all been on the rise in men’s DI. However, I’d argue Asia is still underutilized by coaches compared to its potential.
For women, the international pipeline is more distributed. Countries like Germany, Sweden, and the UK lead the way, but there’s no single dominant source like the UK is for men.
The Big Three States: California, Texas, Florida
I published posts looking at domestic recruiting by state on both the men’s and women’s sides. A reader wrote in with an excellent point I had initially overlooked in these posts. California, Texas, and Florida together supply just over 25% of U.S.-born DI golfers (26% for women, 25% for men). That sounds impressive until you realize these three states account for roughly a quarter of the U.S. population.
When adjusted for population, the Big Three aren’t actually overperforming in supplying golfers to DI rosters. They’re performing right at their demographic weight.
That said, there are meaningful differences in how each state operates:
Texas keeps players home. About 56% of Texas-born women stay in-state for college (53% overall for men). With 19 DI men’s programs included in my dataset and strong in-state loyalty, Texas functions as its own ecosystem. California has 16 schools in the dataset, and both states recruit in-state at rates well above the DI average (60% for California men, 56% for Texas men, compared to 53% overall).
California sits at the national average. About 45% of California golfers stay in-state for women (60% for men). California produces tremendous talent, but that talent spreads across the country.
Florida exports players. Only 32% of Florida-born women stay in-state, well below the national average. Florida’s combination of high talent density, attractive weather, and heavy international interest means in-state rosters can’t absorb all the local talent. As I noted in one post: I have yet to speak to a Norwegian junior golfer who doesn’t list Florida on their future college wish-list. Since COVID, in-state recruiting at the seven Florida schools in my dataset has dropped significantly, now below 30%.
The most popular out-of-state schools for Florida men are Liberty (11 players), Mercer (9), and Penn (8).
Declining U.S. Roster Spots Hit Virtually Every State
Beyond the Big Three, virtually every state has seen declining DI roster spots over the 20-year period. This isn’t about one region getting squeezed. It’s a national trend driven by globalization combined with shrinking roster sizes for men and insufficient growth in roster sizes for women.
You can explore your home state using the interactive dashboards I’ve built. The pattern is consistent: fewer spots for U.S.-born players, more competition from international recruits.
The underlying mechanics differ slightly by gender:
For men: Total DI roster spots have remained roughly flat (slight recent decline) despite a small increase in the number of teams. This is because average roster sizes decreased from roughly 10.0 players in the mid-2000s to about 9.5 players in recent years. The likely culprit? Title IX considerations. With female undergraduate enrollment at 58% versus male enrollment at 42% according to NCES data, athletic departments work to avoid skewing athlete counts versus the student body. Capping men’s golf rosters helps maintain that balance and is likely practiced at a lot of schools
For women: Total DI roster spots increased by about 11% (from roughly 2,000 in the mid-2000s to about 2,250 in recent years), driven by an increase in the number of teams while average roster sizes remained fairly stable. But even with 250 more total spots, U.S.-born women lost about 200 roster spots because international growth consumed all the new capacity and then some.
Height Trends: Men Got Taller (Sort Of), Women Didn’t
I initially set out to test whether college golfers were getting taller, inspired by examples of long-term biological selection in other sports. In The Sports Gene, David Epstein writes about how elite water polo players’ forearms have gotten longer over the past decades. A longer forearm creates more torque, more speed. As the sport became more competitive, athletes with longer forearms had advantages, leading to unintentional biological selection.
Could something similar have happened in college golf? The results surprised me.
Men’s Golf: A Composition Effect
I analyzed 4,571 Division I freshmen with height data across 20 years. For all DI men’s programs combined, the height increase was small and not statistically significant (+0.030 cm per year, p=0.220).
But for Power-4 programs, there was a clear trend: +0.113 cm per year (p=0.004), totaling nearly 2 cm over 17.5 years. The model fit was strong (R²=0.841).
However, this isn’t evidence that coaches are selecting taller players. It’s almost entirely a composition effect.
When I split Power-4 freshmen into U.S.-born and non-U.S.-born groups, both remained essentially flat:
U.S.-born: 2005-2014 average of 180.9 cm, 2020-2025 average of 181.3-181.7 cm (slope = +0.03 cm/year, not significant)
Non-U.S.-born: 2005-2014 average of 181.9 cm, 2020-2025 average of 182.1 cm (basically flat)
Yet the overall Power-4 average rose from approximately 180.8 cm in the late 2000s to 181.7-181.9 cm in the 2020s. Why? Because the share of international freshmen roughly doubled on most Power-4 rosters (from less than 20% to above 35%).
USA ranks 17th among recruiting countries by average height in my dataset. Put more tall countries into the mix, and the team average creeps up, even if nobody inside each group gets taller over time.
Women’s Golf: No Change
I examined 2,778 freshman roster entries with height data for women. The story is completely different.
Women’s DI rosters showed essentially no height trend. The average hovered around 167.2 cm (about 5’5¾”) for all programs and 168.0 cm (5’6”) for Power-4 programs across the entire 20-year span.
The 3-year bucket averages for all Division I programs:
2005-07: 167.35 cm (n=141)
2008-10: 167.02 cm (n=291)
2011-13: 167.54 cm (n=430)
2014-16: 166.78 cm (n=490)
2017-19: 167.14 cm (n=549)
2020-22: 167.78 cm (n=492)
2023-25: 166.59 cm (n=385)
The spread from tallest bucket to shortest bucket is about one centimeter. The weighted linear regression found a slope of -0.01 cm per year with a p-value of 0.79. Statistically, no trend exists.
The reason? Unlike men, where European players are noticeably taller, U.S.-born women golfers (167.09 cm) sit almost exactly at the global average. Even with increased international recruiting (which has been larger for women than men), the height composition stayed flat because the recruiting pools all cluster in the same 167-168 cm range.
The modest height shifts we see in men’s golf reflect changing recruiting geography, not changing selection criteria.
The Names Are Changing Too
As a fun aside, I also looked at names on the men’s side.
Michael is the most common first name for men’s DI freshmen over the 20 years, found 172 times in the dataset (1.85% of freshmen). The top 10 names are Michael, Matthew, Ryan, Tyler, Alex, Nick, Andrew, Kyle, Jordan, and Connor. All classic American names. Just over 1 in 8 college golfers (12.5%) over the past 20 years has been named one of these ten names, roughly one per team.
But their frequency is declining. The popularity appeared to increase up until about 2012, but most of that is due to data coverage being more stable from 2010 onward. From the 2010s forward, the trend is clearly downward. The reason is straightforward: these names are far less common among international recruits.
For last names, Smith tops the list, which makes sense given it’s also the most common surname in the United States according to the 2010 Census Bureau report. The top five U.S. surnames (Smith, Johnson, Williams, Brown, Jones) all appear frequently in college golf as well.
What This Means for Recruiting
If you’re a junior golfer in the U.S., the landscape is more competitive than it was for previous generations. You’re not just competing with players from your state or region. You’re competing with players from all over the world.
If you’re an international junior, the U.S. college route is more accessible than ever. Coaches are actively recruiting from countries that had almost no representation 20 years ago. Awareness of college golf is also spreading through this shift, increasing the demand for college golf in worldwide junior golfers.
You can explore the full data in the interactive dashboards I’ve built:
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Mikkel Bjerch-Andresen
Golf coach, data analyst, writer