Never has the name of a golf course so accurately described the tournament it held.
Sam “Riggs” Bozoian was on his way to Whirlwind Golf Club in Chandler, Arizona, this past Wednesday when he happily answered another media request – there had been dozens – asking him to put into words what the last week of his life had been like.
Maybe “whirlwind” is a bit too on the nose, but it’s hard to go with anything else. Not with how emotional the experience has been.
“I’ve been trying hard not to cry all week,” Bozoian told Global Golf Post. “I’ve got sunglasses, so maybe I can hide it … I don’t want people to be shocked when I’m bawling my eyes out and I’m not even playing in the event.”
Bozoian, the leading golf voice of the popular Barstool Sports outlet, had watched in horror along with many others in the golf world when the NCAA Women’s Baton Rouge Regional was canceled on May 12 without a single shot being hit. The decision to cancel made little sense to those involved. Clearly there could have been some path to holding the tournament, but the tournament officials offered more excuses than solutions. When the top five seeded teams automatically advanced, the other squads were incredulous that their seasons, and in some cases careers, had ended in such unceremonious fashion.
Bozoian is the commissioner of the popular Barstool Classic, a national two-man tournament with more than 20 qualifying sites and a four-day finishing event at Pinehurst, so he had a head start on knowing what went into running a golf tournament.
The world, social media and otherwise, threw every insult at the NCAA, and most of them were justified. Bozoian joined the masses in complaining, but it wasn’t enough.
Something productive had to be done. It couldn’t end like this.
The day after the cancellation — Thursday morning at 6:57 a.m. to be exact — Bozoian received a text from Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool, who offered encouragement that the brand should hold a tournament for the women who didn’t make it to the NCAA Championship. All expenses would be paid, upwards of nearly $100,000, thanks to sponsorships and merchandise profit.
Bozoian is the commissioner of the popular Barstool Classic, a national two-man tournament with more than 20 qualifying sites and a four-day finishing event at Pinehurst, so he had a head start on knowing what went into running a golf tournament.
In short order, the Let Them Play Classic was formed. Bozoian shot a video of him standing on clubhouse steps just like an NCAA official had done in Baton Rouge, only the news was positive this time. The video went viral and the excitement level continued to rise.
Folks. The tears are here. But more importantly, it’s time to play some golf. #LetThemPlay pic.twitter.com/AXEEDtLOcm
— Fore Play (@ForePlayPod) May 20, 2021
The timeline was tight, but the passion was greater. Bozoian, a former college hockey player at Harvard, felt an emotional attachment from the start.
“We wanted this to end on a positive note,” Bozoian said. “We wanted to provide an opportunity for what they work toward all the time, which is to compete. That’s why they get blisters, that’s why they get ridiculous sun tans, that’s why they move classes around … it’s your whole life, it consumes you, it’s everything you are. And it’s at an impressionable age when you’re 18 to 23 years old, learning about who you are. When you are a student-athlete, you are going through all of that with your teammates.
“It’s not the same as playing in the NCAA Championship, but we’ve done everything possible to make it special.”
The collaborative effort of all involved to make the tournament happen is one of the great golf stories of the year. Even with it being played the same week as the PGA Championship, the Let Them Play Classic rightfully earned a massive heap of attention, even extending outside the golf world.
Once Barstool’s live events team and marketing efforts scrambled on the logistics end, the challenge of finding a golf course and getting through NCAA compliance were still significant obstacles. The golf course portion came quite easily as Whirlwind stepped up and offered their facility free of charge. The NCAA compliance portion miraculously worked out so that the players could all wear their uniforms and have coaches present for an official college event, but it wasn’t without the heroics of Steven Smith, the associate athletic director for compliance at Mississippi State University, one of the schools that was eliminated in Baton Rouge and wanted to compete in the Let Them Play Classic.
As Bozoian tells the story, Smith led the charge by working diligently with the other school’s compliance officers on every minute detail — how Barstool would offer financial assistance, what rewards would be provided, etc. — before sending in a waiver request on Friday afternoon. By Monday morning, it was approved. By Thursday morning, the first tee shot was in the air.
“Smith was running through the hallways at Mississippi State with great compliance news,” Bozoian said. “It was the Super Bowl for compliance. It’s like he kicked the winning field goal in the compliance game. He was all jacked up.”
Ten teams and 47 players overall came to Arizona, many of them filling social media with posts of packing their bags or arriving at Whirlwind. On Thursday, a long video featuring PGA and LPGA Tour players, NFL players like J.J. Watt and other celebrities was sent out as one after another wished the girls the best of luck in their season finale.
Even at the PGA Championship, the Let Them Play Classic was a hot topic of conversation. It takes a minor miracle to bring Golf Twitter from a storm of negativity to smiling with positivity, but Bozoian and his team found a way.
“Women’s sports don’t get enough attention,” Bozoian said. “Hand up, I don’t give women’s sports and women’s golf enough attention. When do you see women’s college golf being covered? Almost never. And now there are a ton of folks who are paying attention, on a major championship week no less. That’s going to make it meaningful. I hope the memories from this will last a lifetime.”
Could it ever happen again? What about an annual college golf tournament just like this one?
“It’s probably inevitable at this point,” Bozoian said. “This could be a first step through the door of putting on events that matter to student-athletes where we can highlight the blood, sweat and tears they put into this. There’s no reason why we won’t continue.”
If that’s the case, it would be another major win for women’s golf.