Have we had a drop in recruiting? Looking at the bio of our players, I'm thinking most sound decent but not quite the OSU bios I would expect to see for the best program in the country.
I'm not sure there's a noticeable dip in recruiting as much some of the guys are still developing, and I think we can trust Alan Bratton's ability to recognize and recruit golf talent at this point. Look at some of the hometowns of the players on the roster: Germany (x2), Spain, China, Denmark, Japan, UAE, and Thailand. There's more players from outside of the U.S. than within, which is befitting for what's really a global game nowadays. But the point is that he's getting them from everywhere, suggesting that he's recruiting them specifically for a reason.
And yeah, I think Wolff was highly regarded when he stepped on campus, but Hovland was, outside of Oklahoma State, recruited by Tennessee, Texas Tech, and TCU. Not many golf powerhouses there. Independent of their pedigrees before they stepped on campus, Chacarra (sophomore), Jin (superstar recruit), and Stark (freshman) all have top 10s on the season.
I think the fact that they're ranked by the coaches in the top 15 despite starting most heavily this year two freshmen (Jin & Stark), two sophomores (Chacarra & Neergaard-Peterson), and a junior (Eckroat) with plenty of other talent waiting in the wings means that we can expect them to be strong competitors for a national championship within a couple years.
