Masters Participants by University

So we all know OSU’s golf program is dominant, but just how far-reaching is their Augustan influence (beyond Charles Howell III being born there)? Q and I started talking about it the other day so I decided to take a look at this years’ Masters participants and sort them out by college.

All but one American (Sean O’Hair) went to school somewhere in the United States and many non-Americans did as well. But if a non-American didn’t go to college I categorized them under their country. Because of this the results aren’t perfect but for the original sake of this research (see which college is most prevalent at this years Masters) it works.

Here are the results with only college attendees:

Oklahoma State – 4
Arizona – 3
Georgia Tech – 3
Stanford – 3
UNLV – 3
Arizona St. – 2
Clemson – 2
Duke – 2
Illinois – 2
North Carolina – 2
North Carolina State – 2
Texas – 2

Here are the results with all players:

Australia – 5
South Africa – 5
England – 4
Oklahoma State – 4
South Korea – 4
Spain – 4
Arizona – 3
Georgia Tech – 3
Japan – 3
Stanford – 3
Sweden – 3
UNLV – 3

And here’s the full list with all players and how they made it to Augusta.

Oklahoma State (Mahan, Fowler, Uihlein, and Bo Van Pelt) leads the way in university representation and very nearly clears all other countries with the most participants in the 2011 Masters. It’s kind of a strange year for the Cowboys because this is only the third time since 2000 that Scott Verplank won’t be there and first time appearances for both Uihlein and Fowler, though I would imagine not the last for Fowler.

Also, Chucky three sticks is a normally a regular and Michael Bradley just won the Puerto Rico Open which would normally qualify him but the Masters doesn’t recognize it as a “PGA Tour event that award a full-point allocation for the season-ending Tour Championship.” Imagine that.

Like I said earlier, this data is a little skewed because someone like Luke Donald would count towards England’s total if he hadn’t gone to Northwestern. I guess that’s what you get for spending 4 years on the shores of Lake Michigan instead of tearing up the European tour.

The most surprising find was that Craig Stadler went to USC. If you’d given me 100 guesses as to where Craig Stadler went to school, I would have chosen every Big 10 school, every SWAC school, and Mississippi State 27 times before I would have said USC.

So there you go, Oklahoma State has the most dominant collegiate golf program in the country. Well, kind of. We’ll say it produces the most quality players. I didn’t want to get into best finishes at majors or anything like that. I don’t think those results would be nearly as gratifying. Of course, with the way Fowler and Mahan are playing right now, if one of them gets hot on Sunday afternoon…