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Nobody is calling it the Rainbow Country Club or Manoa Golf Club, but the University of Hawaii’s golf teams are getting an on-campus home. Of sorts. Read more

Nobody is calling it the Rainbow Country Club or Manoa Golf Club, but the University of Hawaii’s golf teams are getting an on-campus home.

Of sorts.

As part of capital improvement appropriations by the Legislature, the Rainbow Wahine and Rainbow Warriors golf teams, the only UH teams other than sailing without dedicated on-campus practice areas, will get a pitch-and-putt short game practice facility and indoor simulation center, athletic department officials told the Board of Regents.

The facilities, which are projected to cost approximately $500,000, are in the design phase and will be located adjacent to the sand volleyball court in the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletic Complex.

While there is a component to helping the teams be more competitive, it is notable as one of the few facilities in the lower campus quarry area whose creation is largely driven by academic considerations.

It might surprise you how that has come to be the case. Because while UH sits on an island amid more than two dozen golf courses, public and private, getting on them with frequency for practice or tournament play in non-school hours at suitable cost has apparently been a problem. One that has been exacerbated by midweek travel to the mainland for tournaments.

As a result, UH officials say, the golf teams racked up some of the most extensive missed class days among all its teams again in 2017-18, according to a report by David Ericson, a professor in the College of Education and UH’s Faculty Athletic Representative.

According to the study, men’s golf missed 28 class days through tournaments and practice and the women’s team was away for 25.

“Anything above 20 days is a concern,” Ericson told the Board of Regents.

The only team with more missed class days was women’s tennis (36). Men’s tennis missed 27, the study read.

Overall, UH athletics recently reached its highest program-wide Academic Performance Rating (981) in the 15-year history of the NCAA metric and is intent on further progress. “That (missed class time) is something that concerns me,” Ericson said.

Much of the tennis situation has been attributable to a heretofore lopsided conference schedule that required UH tennis teams to travel more often than they were able to play at home. That was addressed by the passage of a measure at a recent Big West Conference board meeting that will give UH a one-for-one rotation.

But while tennis has its own courts on the lower campus, golf as had to venture much farther afield on Oahu for midweek practice and on the mainland for tournaments.

Under the circumstances, then, what the teams have accomplished when they are able to get to the classroom is remarkable. All had cumulative team grade-point averages of 3.0 or above, topped by women’s tennis at 3.6. And all had multi-year APR of 975 or better, with women’s golf at a perfect 1,000.

The APR is an NCAA-mandated metric that measures progress toward graduation. The benchmark is 930, which roughly predicts a 50 percent graduation rate. Teams must achieve at least a 930 to be eligible for postseason competition, and those that fall below it can be subject to a variety of penalties.

In the meantime, somebody at the board suggested UH try to get tee times for its teams at Waialae Country Club. “If you could help us with that, we’d be appreciative,” athletic director David Matlin retorted.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.