Division II women's golf team gets cut for budget reasons, ends up winning national championship

Every time a program in any college sport wins its first national championship, it usually hopes that it will be the first of many. This year, one team can definitively say it has won its first and last NCAA championship.

The Division II Florida Tech women’s golf team emerged victorious in the NCAA tournament on Saturday, beating Cal State San Marcos to win the first team championship in program history.

And now, the program will be dissolved.

Months earlier in February, it was revealed the women’s golf team was among three programs Florida Tech had decided to cut, according to Golfweek. At the time, the Panthers were coming off a mediocre fall slate in which they hadn’t finished higher than fourth in a tournament. In fact, they hadn’t won a tournament since 2016.

The program was struggling enough that the Florida Tech athletic department reportedly dropped this gem while justifying its decision:

Florida Tech actually cut three varsity programs in all, with men’s and women’s tennis facing the same fate. Among the factors Jurgens listed in determining which sports were cut was the “potential to be competitive.”

Those players without “potential to be competitive” then geared up and won three of their next four tournaments, qualified for nationals, then won the whole dang thing.

That’s a very different kind of Cinderella story.

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