February 18, 2025 • by Marcus El and Dan Davies
Mike McGraw is one of the most respected coaches in the game. The leader of the men’s golf program at Baylor since 2014, in 27 years of coaching at DI level Coach McGraw has been a National Championship-winning Head Coach at Oklahoma State (2006) and a National Championship-winning Assistant Coach under Mike Holder at OSU (2000) and Jay Seawell at Alabama (2012).
The author of ‘Better Than I Found It’, and host of the long-running podcast of the same name, McGraw is currently working on his next book. In this conversation, which is available in full on our YouTube channel, he talks about the changes and challenges in college golf, working under Holder, and some of the numerous PGA Tour players he has worked with, including Rickie Fowler and Wyndham Clark.
“Bruce Brockbank at BYU always puts a competitive team out there, but I think they’re a little different this year. They've got some guys that hit it absolutely miles. They’re really competitive, so I think they’re a sleeper.”
“I think the PGA Tour University has kept kids competitive longer and kept them staying at their university longer. The talent level on teams is bigger because not as many kids are turning pro early. I love the PGA Tour University model. I think it’s fantastic. Not only kids getting degrees, but coaches are able to keep some kids for four years that they wouldn’t be able to otherwise.”
“When Rickie turned pro, he had two years of eligibility left. I remember telling him early in his career, when I knew he was going to be one of the best players in college golf, ‘Rickie I’m never going to hold you back. The moment you’ve always dreamed of playing the PGA Tour, the moment we both think you’re ready, I'm going to pack the bags for you and allow you to go chase your dream.’ And to his credit, he told me before he left, ‘Coach, I know I’m going to turn pro early and I didn’t get everything accomplished here that we wanted, but I promise you, I’m going to represent Oklahoma State University in the best possible way. And I’m going to wear orange on Sundays.’ And almost every time Rickie’s been playing on a Sunday afternoon on the PGA Tour, he’s worn orange and somebody has mentioned Oklahoma State University.”
“That nine-month period when Wyndham and I were together at Oklahoma State, his freshman year, I’ll never ever do anything as impressive as a coach — record wise, hall of fame, awards, none of that compares to what Wyndham and I went through that year.”
“It used to be when you raised money, you were raising it for a new short game area, or you were raising it to travel to Hawaii. But now you’re having to think about how do I keep this blue chip player that I’ve got here? How do I keep him happy? How do I keep people from getting in his ear and saying, 'Well, Coach McGraw is not giving you enough money?’”
“The one problem is they’re not asking the player to actually meet with the coach and talk about why he wants to leave.”
“He understood his hard edges and he understood that I could smooth those over. And honestly, that was my job for all those years I was his assistant. But I loved working for him for a couple of reasons. One, he was brilliant. Two, he was incredibly hardworking, a relentless recruiter, relentless worker every day thinking about how to make the program better all the time. So he taught me that.”
“I knew I wanted to keep relationships going for life. All the people I’ve ever coached are on my phone. I don’t contact each one of them every month. That’s not possible, but I do talk quite often and text quite often with them. I think relationships are extremely important. It’s the essence of life.”
Listen to the conversation in full