December 8, 2025 • by Dan Davies / Photography courtesy of University of Illinois Athletics
In 25 years as Head Coach at Illinois, Mike Small has transformed a program, consistently producing teams that contend in the latter stages of National Championships and win Big Ten Conference titles and NCAA Regionals like they're going out of fashion. Throughout the training of NCAA Individual champions and creating a winning team philosophy, he has continued to compete at an elite level, honing a rare combination of playing and coaching excellence that has brought Illinois a period of unprecedented success. This is what he’s learned along the way.
My dad played basketball at Illinois and my mom also went to school here, so when I had to decide where to go play college golf, Illinois was always near and dear to my heart. It was always intrinsic in who I was. When I got here as a player, walking down the campus and getting my Illinois golf bag and putting the I on my chest, it became personal.
I would never have played the PGA Tour or had the success I've had as a player if I hadn't played college golf with Steve Stricker.
I was back on the Nike Tour at the time, which is now the Korn Ferry Tour, as a past champion. But it wasn't quite the same as the PGA Tour. I enjoyed college golf so much that when Illinois came calling, that was intriguing to me.
The first year was one the hardest years of my life, trying to change the mindset of a team that was struggling and trying to change.
That was part of the deal coming back. They knew to build a program in the Midwest or the North, you had to have something different. I’ve played 11 major championships while coaching. To coach and recruit and then the next week go play in the PGA or the US Open or tour events, that was a different story to tell. It was a different recruiting angle. It really helped.
It's all about giving them the opportunity. It's about representing the school and this institution with some excellence, some class in the way we go about our business and some determination, grit and competitiveness.
The amount of money that is spent, the amount of time that is spent, and what these kids want to do with their careers, which is to play professional golf, it is a sport and you have to treat it as such. We’ve treated every aspect of it as a major division one collegiate sport, not just a hobby or a pastime, which is a big thing that we do here at Illinois. It’s garnered a lot of respect for our program.
It's just huge.
It has also been very, very helpful in my coaching; bringing back all the experience from playing in those majors and PGA Tour events to the guys, translating it and bringing those stories with me.
If a person is accountable to themselves and responsible for doing what they say, adhering to promises and being true to their teammates, they become empowered themselves. If you can give them the energy and the dream and the excitement to go play, but also have them understand what self responsibility and accountability is and how it plays in that growth, that’s a big deal.
We work on that and we want the guys to be able to hit it long, but we’ve got to be able to control our ball from the fairway, so driving accuracy is big for me. Greens in regulation, distance control and putting your ball on the correct side of the pin, it’s important.
I've worked with all the great teachers in the world to help my coaching more than my playing. These kids come in with different teachers, different instruction and techniques they've learned over the years. I need to learn how to coach these guys and teach them.
When you hit adversity or struggle during a round of golf, there comes a point in time when you have to make your decision: Am I going to let this bother me? Am I going to carry this over? Am I going to use my energy and my focus? Am I going to recalibrate, reboot and come back and take care of this business and get that bogey back? It's a reflection of competitiveness, but then it's the ability to organize your thoughts and your emotions and get them back in the right spot. That shows maturity. That's something we always talk about.
But when I did go play, I saw very quickly it was something that benefited the team.
Tiger was playing in the group ahead of me. My AD was like, ‘This is awesome. We're getting publicity for the university in the middle of summer when it's not football or basketball season’.
They're really good when they're good. But when they're bad, you can see when
stress or tension or adversity hits. That really opens up a time for discussion.
I’ve tried to hire analytical coaches because I'm not an analytical person, never have been. I'm old school. But to have all that data in front of you, it can show more evidence of what I see as a coach.
Probably the best coach to never win a national championship.
Would I trade all those years and all those teams that have gone to the finals and gone to the match match play and felt that rush and that nervousness and that excitement and that energy? That’s nine teams, five guys on a team, so 45 different experiences. Would I trade those 45 for just five guys to have one win? No. I do this for consistency. I do this for being in the game. I do it for each different team, each player that's been there.
They understand how they tick, how they think. They're loyal to themselves and honest to themselves and true to themselves in how to play the game. And they don't deviate.
I watch everything.
I've watched good players for my entire career as a player and a coach. I know what good looks like. But when you try and teach a good player what good golf is, the more evidence and analytics you have, the easier it is to explain that.
I need to be young and relevant and keep them enthused.
There's plenty of time to sit in your rocker and look back and reflect on things. Just keep going. Just keep taking care of business.
Work on your next event. Keep dreaming and believing that you can do things. And then, by gosh, they might just happen.