NORMAN, Okla. – Fighting Illini men's golf head coach Mike Small has been recognized as a finalist for the 2023 Dave Williams Coach of the Year Award presented by Golf Pride Grips as announced by the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA).
The award is given annually to the national coach of the year in NCAA Division I men's golf. Small, the 2015 Williams Award honoree, is one of five finalists on this year's list that also includes Bruce Heppler of Georgia Tech, Scott Limbaugh of Vanderbilt, Conrad Ray of Stanford, and Matt Thurmond of Arizona State.
Small and the Illini closed the 2022-23 season with the No. 1 rating in the final Golfstat rankings, a testament to the team's consistency throughout the entire year. The Illini compiled an NCAA Division I-leading head-to-head record of 172-9-3 in 13 stroke play events, and the team's win percentage of 94.3 percent also ranked first in the country.
Small, who earned his record 13th Big Ten Coach of the Year award, led the program to its eighth consecutive Big Ten title – and 13th of the last 14 overall – to secure one of seven tournament wins on the year, also the most in the nation.
The Illini were the top seed in the NCAA Bath Regional where they advanced through to the NCAA National Championship for the 16th time overall under Small's tutelage, and the 14th time in the last 15 championships dating back to 2008. The team was the No. 3 overall seed entering the championship at Grayhawk and led stroke play after 36 and 54 holes, before finishing tied for second with three individual top-10 finishers in Jackson Buchanan, who tied for second, and the first-team All-American duo of Adrien Dumont de Chassart and Tommy Kuhl, who tied for seventh. It marked the only time in the NCAA Championship's three-year run at Grayhawk that a single program produced three top-10 finishers in stroke play.
Small closed the year by guiding the Illini to the match play portion of the championship for the eighth time since the format was adopted in 2009, breaking a tie with Texas' John Fields for most match play appearances as a head coach. The Illini's match play berth also secured a fifth-place tie for the Orange and Blue in the final NCAA Championship standings with the team's eight top-five national finishes under Small ranking second in the country during that same time frame.
