By Julia Konesky | Reporter
After an underwhelming ending to the 2024 season — placing 14th in the final rounds of the 2023-24 NCAA Championship — Baylor men’s golf has been training hard to rebound in 2025.
“I really look at this team and I think we underachieved in the fall,” head coach Mike McGraw said. “We’re looking to achieve a little closer to what could be our potential. I hate to limit anyone and by sometimes telling a guy, ‘This is how you could be’, you might be limiting him.”
The Bears focused their offseason efforts on physical fitness and club speed.Favorable weather also allowed them to complete all eight qualifying rounds.
“It’s easier to do in the offseason because you can work out a lot and you don’t have to compete,” McGraw said. “Pretty much everybody came back at least as fast as they were during finals week or faster, a couple of them significantly faster.”
During the offseason, Ryan Murphy joined the team as an assistant coach, bringing experience and a new perspective. Murphy helped his alma mater, New Mexico, finish fifth in the 2005 NCAA Championship, which led to his first head-coaching job at St. Edwards. He then spent 16 years at the University of Texas, where he restored the women’s team to national prominence and helped the men’s team win their first national title in 40 years in 2012.
“You should always try to hire assistant coaches that make you better or that challenge you to be better and Ryan certainly does that,” McGraw said. “He says things that are very similar to what I say but he says it differently and it might resonate better with the guys.”
Baylor men’s golf opened its season Monday, Feb. 17, in Palm Springs, Calif., at The Prestige, a three-day tournament that concludes Wednesday. The team’s first in-state tournament is set for March 31.
