Virginia Tech to add women's golf team

BLACKSBURG - Virginia Tech announced Monday it will add women's golf as a varsity sport for the 2015-16 school year.

Women's golf will be Tech's first new team since softball debuted in the spring of 1996.

"We put it on hold four or five years ago because when we contemplated adding women's golf, the economy went down," athletic director Jim Weaver said. "We needed to wait until we got into a better financial situation.

"We wanted to make sure that all of our current Olympic sports were moved along, making sure ... we had enough resources to give them recruiting monies."

Nine ACC schools already have women's golf, as does future ACC member Notre Dame.

"We thought that would be the best place for us to invest our monies," Weaver said.

Tech plans to hire a coach this summer so that person can recruit in the 2013-14 school year. The coach's first class of golfers will be redshirted in the 2014-15 school year. The team won't compete until the
2015-16 school year.

The move will add about $280,000 to the annual athletic budget, excluding scholarships. Weaver said Tech will fund six scholarships, the NCAA maximum.

The men's golf team's practice facility was built with a women's locker room in anticipation of this decison.

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