Hurricane Katrina Brought Michael Thompson To Tide Golf

WILLIAMSBURG, VA. ?? August 29, 2005. The course of many lives changed that day, when Hurricane Katrina hit the Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coasts. Among those was Tulane student Michael Thompson.

Forced to flee the area when the City of New Orleans ordered evacuations,  Thompson’s car was in the shop. So he jumped into a car with a Tulane golf teammate and headed toward Houston to ride out the storm. Katrina wasn’t on track to hit New Orleans. Used to dodging hurricanes before during his two years living and going to school in that city, Thompson figured it was another false alarm.  Ten hours into the drive, they’d only gone 200 miles on the clogged highway filled with fellow evacuees. They decided to stop and play golf along the way, never dreaming what lay behind them in the storm or what would lie ahead of them in its wake.

Thompson’s story has none of the sadness, none of the horrors that many of his fellow Gulf Coast residents experienced and still experience in the wake of the storm. But Katrina did change the course of his life. He lost his car to the same floodwaters that claimed lives, property, dreams. That was easily replaced. But Tulane’s campus was among the areas hit. The school had to temporarily shut down. Thompson and his teammates were shipped to SMU for school and to play fall golf. By fall’s end, it was over. Katrina’s economic impact was devastating to the school. Tulane dropped academic programs and eight athletic teams. One of them was men’s golf.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the 2005 All-Conference USA golf star who had won four individual tournament championships in his first two seasons at Tulane was without a team.

“We were about at the end of our fall golf season that we’d played at SMU,” remembers Thompson, one of five men playing for the University of Alabama at this week’s NCAA Men’s Golf Championships in Williamsburg, Va. “We found out I think on December 9 that Tulane was going to drop the men’s golf program along with several other athletic programs. At that point it kind of hit me that my life was changing and that I needed to find a different place to play golf. I knew that golf was my passion and that was a very important part of my college career. So as soon as I found out, I knew I was going to have to find a different place to play golf.”

That place, it turned out, would be the University of Alabama. This was no average golfer. The Tucson native had won four individual tournament championships in just two seasons at Tulane. Most golfers play an entire four year college career without winning a single tournament, much less four. Thompson was 1^st Team All-Conference USA in 2005 and had a 72.70 stroke average at Tulane in addition to the first of now two United States Amateur appearances. The first was in 2004. He made the field again in 2006.

The heavyweight programs in collegiate golf came calling, similar to how it was when Thompson was the two-time Arizona High School State Player of the Year. Among those teams was Alabama. Just like he’d done in high school, Thompson made recruiting visits. The stop that stopped his search for a team and a program was in Tuscaloosa.

“I fell in love with Alabama and chose to go there,” says Thompson.

At Tulane, Thompson was the team leader. At Alabama, a program with now 16 NCAA postseason appearances and, under Coach Jay Seawell, two trips to the NCAA finals since 2005, Thompson became the new guy, another talent among a talent-heavy team.

“Having to transfer from Tulane was very difficult for me to accept because I felt like Tulane was kind of becoming my team,” said Thompson who was beginning the fall of his junior season when the hurricane hit. “I was helping to make the players coming in, the freshmen and the sophomores, better as individuals. So coming on to the new team at Alabama, I had to adjust myself and kind of come in with that new guy attitude. I had to be patient. I felt like I really had to prove myself.”

Prove himself he has. In his first season with the Crimson Tide, Thompson is the team’s low stroke leader with his 72.27 stroke average. That gives him a 72.52 career stroke average in 34 tournaments or 102 rounds of golf. At Tulane he turned the heads of the Conference USA coaches who voted him 1^st team all-conference. He’s done that same at Alabama as the league’s coaches recently voted him 1^st Team All-SEC.

“It was hard leaving my Tulane teammates, but I knew they were in the same position as I was. We’d all find new teams, new places to go and new places that we’d all fall in love with. It was hard at first, but in the big picture, it really wasn’t too bad,” said Thompson.

And, he says, particularly in his case, he was correct.

“The reason I chose Alabama and the guys here was because of my previous visits to Oklahoma State, New Mexico and Florida. I had kind of gotten a taste of what the elite golf programs are like and the kind of guys that play for those teams. When I came here to Alabama, it felt really down to earth. They like to have fun which is what golf is all about. The coach (Seawell) was great, and that really, really attracted me because ever since I was little I’ve enjoyed this game. I love this game. I read golf stuff off the golf course. The guys think I’m crazy. But I’m really, really into golf. The atmosphere here really attracted me. The differences between the other schools and Alabama really made my choice easy.”

Thompson and his Crimson Tide golf teammates, Matthew Swan, Gator Todd, Mark Harrell and Joseph Sykora begin their national title quest at 11:12 a.m. CT on the No. 10 tee of Golden Horseshoe Golf Club on Wednesday.They’ll be paired with top-seeded and No. 1 ranked Georgia and Tulsa. Thompson, who finished fourth at the May 17-19 NCAA Central Regional, hopes this one starts out a little differently. In one of college golf’s amazing turnarounds, Thompson had a nightmare first round. Thompson opened at 83 and in 98^th place. He came back the next morning at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill., and shot 67. He followed it with a 70 and ended the tournament a mere five shots out from the individual championship.

“After my performance last week at regionals, I definitely go in with a different mindset this week. My struggle this whole year has been my first round scoring average. My goal is to go out and play solid and play patient and realize, ??this is a 72-hole golf tournament. There are plenty of holes left and if I make a few bogeys, then it’s not really that big of a deal. There are plenty of birdies out here.’ For my round tomorrow (Wednesday), I really want to stay focused. Stay within my own game, not get ahead of myself, not be thinking of the final outcome because when you’re thinking about the final outcome, that’s when the trouble sets in. You try too hard. You’re trying to make shots happen instead of letting them come. So I really want to stay patient tomorrow and play my own game one shot at a time. If I do that like I did the last two rounds at regionals, everything should be fine.” 

University of Alabama Athletics

Hurricane Katrina Brought Michael Thompson To Tide Golf

Related News

Related Videos