Jay....never made it down to Trinity's golf course, we always had NESCACS either at Midd or at Taconic.
To rehash the pain, only three teams from each district made the national tourney, our district being western MA, VT, and upstate NY. Skidmore and Williams generally took two spots, and our first three years we were always 4th or 5th come selection time. Senior year, we played well enough to be ranked first over all of our rivals. It was the culmination of four players who had played together every tournament for four years. However, at Midd a student can begin school starting Feb. 1st, graduating 2/1 four years later. Because golf is played both in Fall and Spring, our player played his first semester on campus, Spring '99, three full Fall/Spring years, then his last semester with us, Fall '02. Unfortunately as we learned, he had played parts of 5 years, and was ineligible for his last semester. He was also our #1 player, so his scores were vital in our totals. While not so bad without him, we didn't have the scores without him. Nothing happened really, we just forfeited several tournament wins, including NESCACS, and weren't allowed to go to nationals. Ironically enough, there is little record of this anywhere, and the only place that still mentions the situation are the Williams golf press releases that credit them (correctly, although slightly comically) with the win in 02 when they came in second. Not bitter at all anymore, I just wish the powers-at-be were aware of the rule, considering Midd wins national titles all the time in other sports where there has to be greater scrutiny in following NCAA guidelines. My individual senior year had a chance to go to nationals, but that ended with an 84 in the wind in a tourney in Spring 03.
Anywho, luckily, some of the guys who I played with and others I have met since qualified for nationals in Spring 2007, really the highest a Midd team can achieve considering we will never be national title winners in D3 golf. It would have been nice to experience that, but it was almost as good to see the guys make it fair and square. NESCACS now have two components, a qualifying tournament that sends 4 teams to a NESCAC finals at a later date, and a championship round or two that has an autobid to nationals. So, now there is much less of a "selection" component with several conference title autobids.