[Bravo]

Dave:

In the states, there are numerous athletic scholarships where players get a 'full ride' - all tuition, books or a 'partial scholarship'
These include but are not limited to:

1) American football
2) Basketball - men's and women's
3) Baseball - men's
4) Softball - women's
5) Swimming - men's and women's
6) Tennis - men's and women's
7) Golf - men's and women's
8) Gymnastics - women's

To get a college golf scholarship on a men's team - you need to be scratch and have a documented track record of success in regional tournaments. On the women's side, golf scholarships go begging and if your daughter can break 80 - she will receive numerous offers.

The daily schedule for a college golfer is to organize academic classes in the morning and play in the late afternoon. Then study at night.

It is interesting to note that quite a few British golfers -including Colin Montgomerie attended American universities on golf scholarships (Houston Baptist University). As I have written here, Graeme McDowell played college golf right here in Birmingham. It is very common for American university teams to have players from all over the world on their rosters.

The better college golf programs are located in the South and Western U.S. where the weather is warmer. The college golf season begins in late February and is in full swing in March - May. Therefore universities in colder, northern climates usually do not have as strong programs.

Incidentally several of my neighbor's children have gotten full scholarships to excellent universities such as Dartmouth and University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University. Tuition at these universities can run $25,000 per year so a four year scholarship is genuninely quite valuable to a family.

The coach's job is both to select the team as well as give them instruction as well as manage them (a la a Ryder Cup Captain) in tournament play. It should be noted though that the tournament format is simply total team stroke play, so there is not the element of pairing players according to different formats like the Ryder Cup.