NCAA golf champions: Who are the most notable players to hoist college golf's top prize?

There’s a rarity this week in the field for The Hayt, the University of North Florida’s invitational golf tournament at the Sawgrass Country Club: a defending NCAA individual champion.

Vanderbilt sophomore Gordon Sargent, the No. 1 college golfer according to both major rankings (Golfweek and Golfstat) won the individual title last year at the Greyhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., with a birdie on the first hole of a four-way sudden-death playoff.

He became the first freshman to win the individual championship since Jamie Lovemark of USC in 2007 and earned an invitation to the Masters.

Sargent is the first defending NCAA champion to compete in The Hayt since Luke Donald of Northwestern in 2000.

Winning the NCAA individual title isn’t always a ticket to success on the PGA Tour. Recent winners such as Broc Everett of Augusta, Braden Thorneberry of Mississippi, Cameron Wilson of Stanford and John Peterson of LSU still haven’t made the jump.

It's also no guarantee of lasting success. Only eight men have won an NCAA title and reached the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Here are five of the most notable past NCAA individual golf champions:

Phil Mickelson

Mickelson is the only play to win three outright NCAA titles, at the Oak Tree Club in Edmond, Okla., in 1989, at the University of New Mexico Course in 1990 and at Innisbrook in Palm Harbor in 1992. Mickelson’s Arizona State Sun Devils won the team title in 1990.

Mickelson won his first title by four shots, fired a 66 in the final round in 1990 to help ASU rally from a seven-shot deficit to Florida and beat the Gators by two, and romped to victory in 1992 at 17-under, ignited by opening rounds of 63 and 65.

Mickelson tied for fourth in 1991, six shots behind Warren Schutte of UNLV.

Ben Crenshaw

Had it not been for Texas teammate Tom Kite tying Crenshaw in 1972 at Cape Coral, Crenshaw would not only be tied with Mickelson for the most titles but he’d be the only player to win three outright in a row.

As it is, “Gentle Ben” is probably more than content with being the only man to win or share three titles in a row, with trophies he hoisted in 1971 at Tucson National and 1973 at the Stillwater (Okla.) Golf Club. The Longhorns also won the team title in 1971 and 1972.

Tiger Woods

Woods has won 15 major championships, two Players Championships and three U.S. Amateurs, so it would be a major gap on his resume if he had not won an NCAA title – even though he played for Stanford for only two years.

But Woods didn't miss his chance. He won the NCAA in 1996 at the Honors Course in Chattanooga, Tenn., topping Rory Sabbatini of Arizona by four shots at 3-under 285. The oddity is that Woods shot 80 in the final round but his earlier rounds 69-67-69 gave him a 10-shot lead entering the final round. Stanford finished fourth behind Arizona State.

Jack Nicklaus

A quirk in the schedule had the 1961 NCAA championship at the Purdue Golf Course a week after the U.S. Open at Oakland Hills. Nicklaus posted his second consecutive top-four finish as an amateur in the Open, tying for fourth, three shots behind Gene Littler, and arrived in West Lafayette, Ind., proclaiming, “this is going to feel like a Sunday School picnic.”

The individual title was decided by match play at the time and Nicklaus, playing for Ohio State, was the 36-hole stroke-play medalist at 3-under. The semifinals and final were 36 holes and Nicklaus beat two other Big Ten golfers, rallying from four holes down to beat Gene Hunt of Michigan State 2 and 1 and topping Buckeye teammate Mike Podolski 5 and 3 to win the championship.

Louis Bayard Jr.

He’s not a household name but he won the first NCAA golf title in 1897 at the Ardsley Club in New York. Bayard played at Princeton and if there was ever proof that golf was an elitist sport at the time, it’s this: Ivy League players won the first 26 individual NCAA championships and Ivy schools won the first 35 team titles. Yale won 19 of the team titles over that span.

The first golfer who did not attend an Ivy League school to win the NCAA title was Fred Lamprecht of Tulane in 1925 and 1926. Michigan was the first non-Ivy school to win the team title, in 1934.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: NCAA golf champions: Vanderbilt's Gordon Sargent is the most recent