This season is the first for Blaine Woodruff coaching the UTC Mocs men's golf team and they've already accomplished a level of success the program hasn't seen since the 2007-2008 season when they won five tournaments that year.
This year they've won four with just one tournament remaining, the Southern Conference Tournament (April 23rd). If they can win the SoCon they'll match that '07-'08 team and head to an NCAA Regional.
The path to this point hasn't been paved with sunshine and rainbows for the young first-time head golf coach but he's loving the opportunity to do what he's doing and where he's doing it.
As a kid who grew up in Acworth, Georgia, how did he end up getting into golf?
"I was probably two when I first picked up a club. My dad played in college and my dad's dad played a bunch too," Woodruff continued by talking about what he liked so much about the sport. "It was all me, I didn't have to rely on anybody else and there was something about that, I guess was intriguing in a way. So, I stuck with it, ended up playing a bunch of junior golf, and ended up playing in college (at South Carolina)."
Playing Career
- South Carolina student-athlete: 2011-15
- Played in 25 career college tournaments, earning five top 20 finishes with a career scoring average of 74.79
- Gamecocks Team MVP: 2011
- SEC Honor Roll all five years
- U.S. Amateur Qualifier: 2011, 2012
- 2008 U.S. Junior qualifier
- 2-time Georgia PGA Player of the Year: 2005, 2006
- 2009 Marietta Daily Journal Golfer of the Year
- Harrison Golf MVP and team captain (2007-10)
- State Championships in 2008 and 2010
Now, while he loves the individualism of the sport of golf, playing within a team dynamic was also a very fun and unique experience for him.
"I loved the team part of golf which is such an individual sport but in college you get to do it for four or five years as a team and that part is really, really unique."
That unique team aspect is exactly what drove Woodruff to coaching and his desire to want to help other young golfers develop and have a similar college experience that he had.
"I got my Masters in human resources and had sort of planned on taking a job in Atlanta and thought I had my life all figured out. Next thing I know I get a call from a guy who was my assistant coach my freshman year at SC, he was at the University of Wisconsin and his assistant had just left to go work for Taylor Made. He said, 'do you want to come up here and be the assistant?' It took me about three seconds to answer that one, I'm like yeah count me in, I'm coming up there."
Just when you think you've got life figured out, it throws you a curveball, you just never know what might happen if you put what you truly want out into the universe. Blaine Woodruff wanted an opportunity to coach college golf, and he got it with the Badgers of Wisconsin.
From there, the coaching fires had been fully lit, he spent two seasons in the land of cheese before another opportunity popped up for him at Pepperdine.
"I wasn't looking to leave. I loved Madison. We were getting better as a team and it just kind of came out of nowhere. There was an opening at Pepperdine and to be honest I didn't even know where Pepperdine was (neither did I, admittedly before this conversation). I think when I had first heard the name of the school I thought it was an Ivy League school out in the northeast."
From the first time he had a conversation with the head coach, Michael Beard he knew this was something he was not going to want to pass up.
"We talked for probably four hours the first time he called me and I was like man, there's something special going on there and I kind of just felt in my heart there was a draw to that place, and that was going to be the best thing for me career-wise to go a little bit out of my comfort zone."
Get out of his comfort zone he did, he ended up meeting a whole new network of people out on the west coast including his now wife who was also working at Pepperdine at the time.
While there, he ended up coaching some incredible golfers that include Clay Feagler, Josh McCarthy, and RJ Manke who all play on the Korn Ferry Tour. There are two who are playing on the PGA Tour Canada in Joe Highsmith and Joey Vrzich. However, the most notable is currently a member of the PGA, Sahith Theegala.
Woodruff spent 2018-2022 at Pepperdine but when he got the chance to come back closer to home, he and wife took it.
Despite all the success Chattanooga men's golf has had this season, it was a tall task to keep the group they had here previously together and even add to it. Scoring leader Paul Conroy and senior Alex Cobb both entered the portal after the 2022 season, and he had to recruit them back.
"When I got the job in June, we had three guys on the roster. So, safe to say, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep in June. I knew we had some work to do, we basically had to re-recruit Paul and Alex to come back and then we got three more transfers with John Houk, Sam Espinosa, and Garrett Engle. All of those guys have been huge, huge contributors to the program."
For Woodruff, he of course wanted players that were talented/skilled but he also wanted guys who had a specific type of drive within them...
"Something that was really important to me was having guys who really wanted to be the best that they could possibly be and guys who were really competitive because I wanted to set up the kind of environment where we could really be competitive at home and make tournaments seem easier than practice."
As long as he continues to strive to bring in that type of player this program should be in great hands for a very long time to come.
To hear the entire conversation with UTC Men's Golf coach Blaine Woodruff from The Word With G on ESPN Chattanooga, head here.
Photo By Dalton Wainscott/Indiana Athletics