Two Mizzou women's golfers, Addie Dobson and Melanie Walker, are due in a Boone County courtroom Friday at noon, asking a judge to grant them a fifth year of NCAA eligibility just three days before their home tournament tees off. The hearing before Judge Joshua Devine at the Boone County Courthouse comes after the pair filed a motion for a temporary restraining order against the NCAA on September 14, arguing the association's new eligibility rule wrongly cuts off their final season.
Dobson, a graduate student, and Walker, an undergraduate, both started competing for Mizzou as freshmen in 2022, according to ABC 17 News. Both remain on the Mizzou official roster submitted to the NCAA and have been approved for scholarships and NIL deals, the station reports. Their lawyers argue the golfers still fall within the NCAA's own five-year eligibility window, a claim central to the motion filed against the association.
The dispute traces back to the NCAA Division I Cabinet's adoption of the age-based “five seasons in five years” eligibility structure, approved in June 2026 and put into effect on August 1, according to LiveNOW from FOX. The new rule scrapped traditional redshirt years and most medical waivers, limiting exceptions to military service, maternity leave, and religious missions, and established a five-year window to practice and compete starting at initial full-time enrollment. The motion filed on Dobson and Walker's behalf argues that students who enrolled before August 1 and remain within that five-year window should still be allowed to compete.
A Home Tournament on the Line
The golfers say they want to be eligible in time for their next tournament, scheduled for September 21. Both golfers have continued practicing with the Mizzou women's golf team while the legal fight plays out. The stakes are real for the program.
Dobson, a Jacksonville, Illinois native, capped that run by competing in the U.S. Women's Open at Riviera Country Club in June, according to Mizzou Athletics. Walker joined Mizzou as a freshman alongside Dobson in 2022 and had previously qualified as a medalist for the U.S. Girls' Junior Championship before enrolling.
Mizzou's Growing List of Eligibility Fights
Dobson and Walker aren't the first Mizzou athletes to take the NCAA to court this year. Defensive lineman Sterling Webb, who is listed on the Mizzou football roster, filed his own lawsuit in August seeking an extra season after playing four years from 2022 to 2025 without a redshirt. St. Louis County Circuit Judge Ellen H. Ribaudo granted Webb a temporary restraining order allowing him to practice, a ruling detailed by Sports Illustrated. University of Missouri System Board of Curators member Bob Blitz served on Webb's legal team and publicly confirmed Webb's return to practice after the court order.
The same eligibility fight has spread to Mizzou basketball, where players including Shawn Phillips Jr. and Mark Mitchell were identified in August as seeking or already granted fifth-year eligibility under the same class-of-2022 exclusion, Sports Illustrated reported. Mitchell was also among the players identified in the report.
A Patchwork of Rulings Nationwide
Mizzou's cases fit into a much larger legal picture. In July, state courts in Hamilton County, Ohio, and Travis County, Texas, issued a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order, respectively, for athletes challenging the same NCAA transition rule, according to 247Sports. The Ohio court found the NCAA's application of the rule arbitrary ahead of fall season openers.
Federal courts have moved in the opposite direction. A split panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily stayed a federal class-action injunction on August 21 that had granted fifth-year eligibility to class-of-2022 athletes broadly, according to Courthouse News Service. That Colorado-based class action covered student-athletes who entered college during the 2022-23 academic year, but the appellate stay left individual state court temporary restraining orders, like those in Missouri, Ohio, and Texas, intact. The result is a week-to-week legal environment in which athletes are increasingly turning to their home state courts rather than waiting on the broader federal case to resolve.
For now, Dobson and Walker's fate for the tournament rests with Friday's noon hearing in Columbia. Whether Judge Devine follows the pattern set in Sterling Webb's St. Louis County case, or in Ohio and Texas, will determine whether either golfer tees off at Old Hawthorne this weekend.
