November 3, 2025 • by Dan Davies / Photographs by University of Oklahoma Athletics
Words of wisdom from the GCAA Hall of Fame Head Coach at Oklahoma, who has just celebrated his 50th tournament win in 17 years with the Sooners, the seventh highest among active DI coaches.
, what our heartbeat is like, the soul of this team.
I actually think that’s one of the more difficult parts of our job, to try and create something different and unique each year because every team is significantly different.
, because everybody thinks they already know what’s getting ready to happen.
That’s partly my job, to try and get into these guys and hopefully allow their mindsets to grow in a way that they can sit back and go, ‘Yeah, I actually won today. Whatever task I was doing, I won today.’
We’ve had a lot of opportunities in the last 10 to 12 years. We’ve only been able to win it one time.
But guess what? About a week and a half before that event even started, you could see everybody start playing well. We had five guys legitimately playing great golf going into the championship. We played well in stroke play. Everybody was in each match. And I think that’s the key. When you're coming down the stretch, you have to have five guys that can go win matches. You really need five guys that can go win a point because it’s really difficult to get to three.
When I arrived, we had the space, but the facilities weren’t in the best shape in the world. Our players, they had kind of been beaten down for a while. So we needed to get some love and care into the guys. The recruiting had to really get amped up. The one thing that I had that a lot of folks don’t have coming into a bad situation in a program was great former players. We were very, very dynamic with our program back in the ’70s, 80s and early 90s. And that group of guys knew what we could do and I knew it as well.
We love our South Central type kids, just good hard-nosed players that are trying to get the most out of their games every single day.
I just fell in love with his game. He was a very straight ball hitter. He controlled his irons. He did everything very well, plus he’s super competitive. When his back’s against the wall, he thrives. He was incredible for us. He made us look like we knew what we were doing as coaches, which allowed us to recruit better players.
Speed has become such a big topic of conversation. When you’re starting to play higher level golf, there’s no doubt that controlling your irons and spin rate is a big deal. A guy like Abe was phenomenal at it.
They called me Captain Scrounge back in Georgia because I was so scroungy with my short game.
It was born into me, because I was always around my older brother and his crew. So you’re always trying to prove yourself, right? There’s certainly a type of attitude that we’re looking for. It doesn’t come with every guy but you certainly want certain types of guys within your program that can permeate the rest of the locker room to have that type of chip.
He didn’t really play with a chip. He played with a different other type of personality trait that I also love, and that’s a guy that wants to perform.
His short game was phenomenal and he could escape from anywhere. But he loved performing and that's why YouTube golf right now is really cool for him, being on with the Good Good guys. Don't be surprised if he doesn't make a comeback at some point because he’s always had the game. And this is allowing his personality come out even that much more perform and I truly believe that his confidence is growing to where you might see him do something really cool in the professional world. I’ve always believed in Brad and his talents.
You can feel the love and the level of excitement when somebody shows up on property.”
You’re looking at what are they potentially capable of? What kind of dig in does it look like they have?
, because there’s a lot of good players out there that actually don’t like playing the game as much as you think. They’re just really good at it.
Statistically speaking, guys that put themselves out of play one, two, even three times a round, that’s going to be difficult.
I like relating to my guys, but there’s certainly challenges with generational changes that you can see throughout kids… most of these guys still want direction. They want guidelines for understanding what’s going to allow them to thrive.
You have to be able to fill your space with some other things, whether that's enjoying working out or hunting or playing an instrument or whatever the case may be. You've got to kind of find something, right?
Complete opposite sides of the spectrum. My dad: very disciplined in his approach; Chris Haack: a lot more on the flexibility side, allows his guys to just get out and go play golf. He’s a great recruiter because he’s a phenomenal storyteller. One of the most fun human beings that you'll ever be around in your life. He’s a great connector of people and that's why you can fall in love with him.
Where is the growth actually happening? How can we measure that? That's what stats are for.
What we’re capable of for sure is in the bag.
You can have a really good year and not win one time. Winning tournaments is great but I want to make sure that we're actually beating the people that we're supposed to be beating.
, which is trying to get them better week after week after week. And each guy is really significantly different when you kind of really break that down.
The minute I feel like I don’t have the juice, I need to not be doing this — because I love it.