Beyond the coach support and pre-read process, it makes sense to ask coaches questions about the likelihood of future elimination of sports teams. Coaches should be willing to speak with recruits about this.
I assume we are talking about golf, but really any non-revenue sport is at risk for elimination…schools and conferences have already lost out on this past spring’s March Madness revenue. Now, many conferences will lose football revenue and quite possibly another year of March Madness $…we will likely see significantly more sports cuts in the coming year.
Dartmouth’s golf course had been losing significant money for years, so it’s wasn’t much of a surprise when they eliminated M&W golf this past spring. At Penn, the golf course is a 30 minute drive each way, which is less than practical for the athletes. It’s time consuming for the athletes to lose an hour in the bus each day (especially for those who can’t read while in cars/busses) and at least when my daughter was looking, there were very few upperclass students on that team…per some team members, the inefficiency of this commute was part of the reason students stopped playing. If I were AD, that would be low hanging fruit to cut a program like that.
My point is ask these questions of coaches, you don’t want to be in a situation where you are recruited and the team is suddenly eliminated. It’s certainly not 100% knowable, but doing research into athletic dept finances, facility and/or operational issues, and institutional philosophy/priorities can make a difference and impact one’s final decision where ultimately to commit.