SDSU golf video has viewers cheering - U-T San Diego

It is 56 seconds of good theater. Fifty-six seconds of joyous enthusiasm and impressive athleticism. Fifty-six seconds that could have a longer lasting impact for the San Diego State women’s golf team than, well, 56 seconds.

With their coach, Leslie Spalding, away recruiting in Florida, the Aztecs women produced a 56-second video of trick shots for a Back Nine Network contest for college teams. They joked with each other that if they got few thousand hits on the web they’d be ecstatic.

They underestimated themselves, by many hundred thousand.

The video hit YouTube on Feb. 15, and as of midday Monday it had been viewed more than 880,000 times. For anything involving college women’s golf, that’s a bit mind-blowing.

“Golf is cool now. My team is cool now,” Spalding said between giggles. “It’s like women’s golf is not the coolest thing. But my girls work so hard and they are so committed, and they’re so competitive and so good and so fun, and I just think this gives them validation.

“It’s a great group that ought to be recognized every now and then instead of just being the ‘Title IX sport.’ It’s really, really fun.”

The excitement about the video went international, with reaction from people in countries as far flung as Japan and the Czech Republic. In the U.S., the Lady Aztecs got exposure on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” NBC’s “Today,” Golf Channel’s “Morning Drive,” and ESPN.

“It’s insane. This is crazy,” senior Paige Spirinac said. “We didn’t expect this at all. We were joking around that maybe we’d get 5,000 hits. And we were seriously joking. We can’t believe it has exploded the way it has. It’s awesome.”

The video was shot as an entry into the Back Nine Network’s “Ultimate College Trick Shot Challenge.” The best 32 videos will be put into a bracket in April and voted on head-to-head by fans. The total purse for the contest is $30,000, with the winners earning $3,200 for their program.

The Aztecs already have exceeded that benefit. Spalding said one local athletic donor, who had not contributed to women’s golf before, committed $5,000 to the program after seeing the video. The coach has been working with fundraising arms at the school to strike while the video is hot. Spalding said it’s against NCAA rules for the team to sell the video or get money from the hits on YouTube.

Clearly, it’s also of tremendous boost to the program that SDSU women’s golf reached so many platforms.

“It’s great for recruiting, no doubt,” said Kristina Lynn, the former player and team manager who shot the video on her iPhone and posted it. “It gives our university and our program good recognition and exposure. It shows people that we can have fun and be good at it too.”

The appeal of the video goes beyond the impressive tricks. From the opening sequence, when Spirinac and Swedish junior Emma Henrikson perform gymnastics stunts while four players juggle balls off their wedges, there is a “girls just wanna have fun” vibe.