'The Battle To Combat Slow Play On Tour Is Being Fought At College'
USC's women's golf head coach Justin Silverstein spoke to Golf Monthly about a variety of subjects in college golf - including the battle to combat slow play
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Justin Silverstein has been a part of the University of Southern California's golf teams for well over a decade now, serving as the No.2 on both sides before taking his place as the Trojans' women's team head coach in 2018. And in that time, there is very little he has not seen or helped to achieve.
Since being at the helm of the women's program and working with the likes of Amari Avery, Catherine Park and Jasmine Koo, Silverstein led the Women of Troy to 31 wins in his first seven seasons - including seven during his debut campaign (2018-19) - plus Pac-12 titles in 2019, 2021 and 2023.
USC has also claimed three NCAA regional wins (2019, 2022 and 2024) and his players have combined for 18 All-American honors and 17 All-Pac-12 first team awards.
In short, there are very few people more qualified to talk about the state of the women's college game than Silverstein.
So that's exactly what we did. After a long chat about all manner of subjects in relation to the college game, here are our three biggest takeaways...
SLOW PLAY IS EVERYWHERE - BUT KIDS ARE BEING TAUGHT TO PLAY FASTER
Slow play is one of golf's favorite love-hate topics right now, with the question of what to do about it posed daily.
In Silverstein's view, it has to start with education from the ground up, with his players taught to operate in a ready golf style. The preconceived notion that athletes should obey the honor system is ignored - if you're ready, you're up.
The Trojans head coach insists slow play is "everywhere" as a result of excess field sizes and the unnecessary difficulty of some courses.
But he believes it is getting better at the college level as host locations "take themselves less seriously" and stop trying to emulate a US Open-style set-up every week.
Silverstein said: "I can tell the public you're having college golf coaches stress faster play at every school, so hopefully things get better professionally because of that.
"But I think, as long as people are playing for money, whether it's with their buddies or on national TV for a couple million bucks, it's going to take a long time. And unfortunately, there's not a ton we can do about it other than try to train them, which stinks.
The 2024 US Women's Open was one of many events marred by slow play over recent years
"We don't play honor system at all really ever in junior golf in the States. The AJGA, they're teaching kids if you're in a three ball and you're the first one to hit, pick up your bag or push your bag and start walking off the side. Get up, get going.
"So these kids are getting more comfortable hitting with people kind of moving, which is great.
"And I think so much of it goes to awareness. I've talked to a couple coaches about this, if you're slow, and there are slow people - there are slow free-throw shooters in the NBA.
"Giannis [Antetokounmpo] takes 15 seconds to shoot a free throw. If you're slow, walk fast. You better get to your ball first so you can do your homework and be ready to go."
GOOD PLAYERS = GOOD COACH
Silverstein speaks to Catherine Park during the DI Women's Individual Stroke Play Golf Championship
According to Silverstein, the answer to the question 'what makes a good college golf coach?' is quite simple. Good players.
Pointing to some of the best coaches in the world to help illustrate his point, the 38-year-old insisted that even the great Butch Harmon might struggle to get a tune out of a group of college players without a suitable amount of talent.
He said: "The easy answer would be good players make a good college golf coach. Me and my mentors, and I've been fortunate to work for a lot of really good head coaches - future Hall of Famers - and all of them kind of go along same guidelines.
"You could be the best coach in the country, you could have Butch Harmon coaching college golf, and if you didn't have good players, they wouldn't be very good.
"They wouldn't be winning tournaments on a regular basis. They wouldn't be competing for conference championships, and competing for national championships.
"I could be the best player-development guy in the world. If I had players with no talent, our program wouldn't be very good. So all the credit goes to our players, but also the university for helping us build a foundation to attract those people to come here."
DIVERSITY OF D1 WINNERS IS ONLY GROWING
Jasmine Koo is one of the top-ranked college players
Put simply, the difference between the top of D1 and the rest is gradually becoming less and less in the women's game as schools which have not historically operated big-hitting golf programs invest into practice facilities and recruitment - funnelling some money away from their extremely lucrative football and basketball peers.
Silverstein welcomes this move and says it has all but ended the monopoly of just a few select colleges - of which USC was one - only a decade or so ago.
Of the past nine NCAA D1 Championships to have taken place between 2016-2025, eight different teams have tasted glory. Between 2009 and 1989, only seven different teams tasted glory.
Explaining how the landscape in women's college golf has changed for the better, the USC boss said: "I would say about 10 to 15 years ago, the top-10 teams were getting... let's say 90% of the best players. They had six scholarships, most of these schools and had six elite players on the roster.
"A change in the past five to 10 years is these players started spreading out as schools invested in facilities and programs. You started to see programs that were - anywhere from 11 to 40 in the power four conferences which got this influx of football money - spending it on golf facilities, golf courses, practice areas, indoor areas and cold weather schools, better travel.
"That then enables you to play a better tournament schedule, more recruiting money, so you can go to Europe and try to get players to come over. You can go to Asia and try to get players to come over.
"So the good part - in a way, it's made it harder to win - is that we have this bigger pot of schools that can win a national championship or compete at a high level now. So the top 10, 15, 20% of players have spread out a little bit.
"We've been fortunate at USC, we continue to get really really elite players. And so do places like Stanford who's kind of top of the market right now. Stanford is getting the elite players to come there and they develop them and win a bunch of golf tournaments, just like we do.
"So the difference between the top end of D1 and the rest is the talent, still, but then you've got to find a differentiator for those top-end players.
"So, I think when the influx of football money did come in and facilities got ramped up, things got better in the college golf landscape because you didn't just see the same, especially on the women's side, the same five, six, seven teams playing for a national championship every year."
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