When golfers tee off at 14 sites around the state Monday and Tuesday, the NJSIAA sectionals will have a different look. There will be two fewer sections and 10 fewer team and individual titles for boys, while the girls have gained a section and a title but will have some noteworthy teams not participating. The state approved the following changes last September: - The boys public tournaments were reduced from four sections to two, North and South Jersey, eliminating the Central and second North sections. There was also a switch to one non-public group with two sections (North and South), replacing the A and B groups within the two sections. - The girls have gone from three to four tournaments, replacing the old arrangement of North, Central and South sections with new A and B groups in North and South. There remains no separate tournament for non-public teams, but they will no longer compete against public teams for a sectional title. Girls non-public teams can, however, qualify for the State Championships via the iWanamaker ranking system, which is the official scoring platform for all high school golf in the Garden State. The top eight teams will advance from sectionals and will compete against the same number of non-public teams for the state title. Another noteworthy change since last season is the return to allowing individual sectional qualifiers, as long as they are in the top 10 for their section in the iWanamaker rankings. They can be golfers whose teams do not make the field, or individuals whose teams do not have enough golfers to field a full squad. Some coaches are less than pleased with the changes, while others are looking forward to playing in the new format. “It will be interesting to see how this year’s competition plays out,” Holmdel girls coach Kathy Bradley said. “It‘s the first year, and I’m sure the committee will again ask for coaches’ thoughts when they (evaluate) this year’s tournament experience and build on it for next year. “If I were a non-public coach, I’m sure I would be disappointed that I couldn‘t participate in sectionals if I qualified. However, if you look at it on the other hand, the top teams will have an automatic bid to the finals, so ultimately the top talent will rise to the top.” Last year, four of the eight non-public girls teams that qualified for sectionals made the Tournament of Champions, but four others were beaten out by public teams. This year’s arrangement guarantees eight non-public qualifiers, who will get to compete for group and T of C titles. The fact that they cannot play for a sectional title is similar to the arrangement for other sports, including wrestling, track and field, ice hockey and lacrosse. “The growth of girls golf is expanding with so many more teams, and the divisions needed to be addressed,” Bradley said. “For Holmdel and other public schools, it meant being able to compete at the state level solely against other public schools. The non-public schools, especially up North, are dynamos. ... Since non-public schools can have a widespread draw of players and build a team that is much stronger than what a public school could do, this evens the playing field.” The state made the changes to the girls tournaments in part because of the gradual increase in the number of girls teams. NJSIAA Assistant Director Al Stumpf reinforced that the primary goal was to also have an “equitable number of teams in each public section and non-public group,” which the state organization wrote on its agenda notes for the September meeting. “The NJSIAA re-structured the girls tournament due to the increased number of schools offering girls golf,” Stumpf said. “There are 97 public schools and 26 non-public schools (with some of the NP schools it varies from year to year as to whether or not they offer the sport based on numbers) that indicated that they offer girls golf. “To that end, we had three sections of combined public and non-public schools. Now we have four sections of public golf that are divided into A and B, each having a North and South. The nonpublic schools’ numbers do not match up to having more than one statewide group. As we have done in some of our other sports, the non-public schools will have the top eight teams advance directly (to the State Championships).” Holy Angels came into the season having won back-to-back girls state championships and three straight sectional titles. Patrick Dunne, the coach at the Bergen County school, would like to see a non-public sectional tournament being offered, though his team can still earn a place atop or among the state’s best teams. “It seems the public schools feel the private schools have too much of an advantage over the public schools, so they want to separate the public from the private as they do in other sports,” Dunne said. “However, according to the state, there are not enough private schools that field a girls team to set up a sectional tournament, so only public schools will compete in the sectional. Why not wait until there are enough girls teams to set up sectional tournaments for the private schools before making this move?” If there were two non-public sectionals for girls, with the teams divided in half this year, they would consist of 13-team fields, which would be half the size of other sectional fields. Overall, there will be eight public and eight non-public teams qualifying for the girls T of C this year, with two each from the four public sectionals plus the non-public qualifiers through iWanamaker. The total of 16 is an increase of nearly 80 percent over the nine-team fields of recent seasons. In boys sectionals, 20 teams will advance to the T of C (two apiece in eight public and two non-public qualifiers), four fewer than in recent years. The difference is that even though there will be two fewer non-public tournaments, they will still have two qualifiers apiece. Michael Butler, the boys and girls coach at Ranney, does not like having smaller schools from Non-public B having to compete with the larger A teams at sectionals. He said he sent a letter to all Non-Public B athletic directors urging them to strongly consider speaking up. “As this may just be boys golf right now, they are setting a precedent which they will absolutely use for all Non-Public B sports down the road,” Butler said. “They would never ask Group 1 schools to compete with Group 4 schools, as they protect competitive balance for public schools. So why is it different for non-public schools?” Jim Jacobsen, in his 43rd season of a legendary coaching career at Bergen Catholic, said fewer non-public qualifying spots inevitably means some top teams will not advance. “If they will allow four teams to qualify for the states, then I think it‘s good for the sport,” Jacobsen said. “If they are allowing only two teams from each group, it would appear some very good teams are not going to make it. That would not be good for the sport, as the best teams are not there. Twenty teams will qualify for the states (T of C), where it used to be 24. In Non-Public A & B, there are at least six teams that will be ranked in the top 10 via iWanamaker.” The N.J. High School Sports newsletter is now appearing in mailboxes 5 days a week. Sign up now! Follow us on social: Facebook | Instagram | X (formerly Twitter) Lou Monaco (boys golf) can be reached at lmonaco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X: @loumonaco. Craig Epstein (girls’ golf) can be reached at cepstein@njadvancemedia.com.