Fifth-year head coach Nick Clinard of the UCF men's golf team visits ucfathletics.com Friday morning at 10 a.m. for a live chat. Clinard has led UCF to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances and currently has two players playing in the U.S. Amateur Championship starting Monday. |
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| Nick (Lafayette, LA): Nick, with your experience dating back to College Station, will the shift to Conference USA allow you to recruit more link jockeys out of the state of Texas? |
| | Coach Clinard: I lived and worked in Dallas for four years and know that is is tough to pull talented golfers away from the state because they have so many places to choose from in the state. If you are able to get a top junior golfer from the state of Texas to leave once every few years you are fortunate. |
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| Ron (Akron): The tournament you hosted last year at Isleworth had a great field. Are you hosting an event this year at Isleworth? |
| | Coach Clinard: We are hosting another tournament this year at Isleworth. We are fortunate to have a great relationship with the folks at Isleworth and the Tavistock Group which make it a pleasure to have a tournament there. Isleworth is one of the best private golf courses in the world and we look to make the tournament bette every year. The field this year will be stronger than last year with nine of the top 10 teams in the final Golf Stat rankings coming. |
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| John (NPR): Do you expect the loss of Andreas Hoegberg to be filled by a returning player or one of the newcomers? |
| | Coach Clinard: That's a good question. Andreas is a great loss, but we have a good nucleus of returning players and a talented group of newcomers. The returning players have had a great summer with two of them qualifying for the U.S. Amateur. It will be an interesting fall to see which of the newcomers steps on campus ready to compete at the college level. |
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| JoeyDenton (Denver, NC): Coach...well done. It is great to see how things are going for you. Hello to your bride. Good luck in the Fall! |
| | Coach Clinard: Great to hear from you. I hope all is well with you and your family. Thank you for keeping up with our progress. |
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| Tracy (Michigan): What is the hardest part of recruiting college golfers? |
| | Coach Clinard: The hardest part from a coaching standpoint is the amount of time and effort you have to invest to be successful. It's a 24-7 process and once you finish with one class you have to start on the next. Evaluating the talent is probably the easiest part. It doesn't take long to determine of someone can play golf, but it takes time to recruit because you have to continually watch the players to show your intersest. |
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| Rick (Orlando): Why do they call you "Hollywood"? |
| | Coach Clinard: Not sure where you are going with that question. This chat is only a half hour and I wouldn't have time to explain. |
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| Doug (Orlando): What do you like most about college coaching and do you miss playing professionally? |
| | Coach Clinard: I miss the competition, but I don't miss the grind of practicing and preparing every day to play professionally.I enjoy the challenge of coaching and it's rewarding to help the student-athletes develop as players and also in their personal lives. |
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| Carl (Phoenix): Do you think you can advance to the NCAA Championships this year? |
| | Coach Clinard: I really believe we can. We have been close the past two years and with the amount of talent and depth we have this year we can be a top 20 program. I am excited about the year and looking forward to my players reporting next week. |
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| John (Dallas): Coach, you are joining a conference with some strong schools like SMU, Tulsa, Memphis and Tulane. What impact will joining C-USA have on your program? |
| | Coach Clinard: I think it's a positive when you have all of your athletics teams under the same umbrella in a nationally competitive conference. SMU, Tulsa and Memphis are certainly strong programs and it will be a challenge to win the conference title, but good recruits want to play against good talent so it's never a bad thing when you play good competition. |
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| Moderator: That is all the time we have for now. Thank you for joining the chant and submitting some good questions. |
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