By Dylan Fink | Sports Writer
Men’s golf head coach Mike McGraw is one of the most decorated coaches in the nation.
Hoisting three national championships and appearing in 21 championships throughout his career, McGraw has brought an image of success to Waco that is driven by a “leave it better” mentality.
“I want every space that I fill to be better than it was before I got there,” McGraw said.
McGraw began his coaching career in 1984 as the assistant golf coach at Memorial High School in Edmond, Okla.
“My dream of being a professional golfer was coming to an end,” McGraw said. “I went back to get two more degrees so that I could teach and be a high school coach.”
Following his collegiate career at Central Oklahoma, McGraw found himself missing out on his childhood dream of becoming a professional golfer. He turned to a new mission: helping others who had the same goal.
“A lot of people have the dream of being a professional golfer, so I thought maybe I could help kids get closer to the dream than I did,” McGraw said. “My failed professional career served as a desire to help these kids that I coach reach higher heights.”
McGraw saw unprecedented success coaching at the high school level, bringing home seven state championships in nine years. His time at the high school level came to a close when then-Oklahoma State head coach Mike Holder came calling.
“Mike Holder is one of the most iconic figures in college golf, if not one of the most iconic figures in the history of NCAA athletics,” McGraw said. “He was the most powerful man in the athletics department as a golf coach.”
McGraw took a considerable pay cut to work as an assistant under Holder. College assistant golf coaches were paid only $18,000 a year in 1998.
“My thought was surely I could get a head coaching position after a few years of being his assistant coach,” McGraw said. “My wife had to drive 45 minutes every day back to Edmond, still working as a schoolteacher to support us during this time.”
The sacrifice paid off when, in 2006, Oklahoma State elevated Holder to athletic director. The school promoted McGraw to take his place.
“OSU was a great place to learn, with a great man to learn from, and my career would be greater from it all,” McGraw said.
He immediately found success, winning a national championship in his first year.
“My first six years, we were lightyears ahead of where the program had been the last few years for Mike [Holder],” McGraw said.
Following the championship, McGraw’s career changed forever when he signed highly rated freshman Rickie Fowler. Fowler went on to become the first freshman to win the Ben Hogan award, awarded to the best college golfer in the country, in 2007.
“When I signed Rickie, I knew my career had changed in that moment,” McGraw said. “I knew he would be an iconic figure in college golf, and a notable figure in professional golf.”
McGraw went on to make seven national championship appearances at Oklahoma State and oversaw the production of a handful of notable PGA Tour players, including Fowler and Charles Howell III.
“You know when you are working with high-achieving, high-dreaming people, that is a huge responsibility,” McGraw said. “With Charles Howell, I had somebody say to me, ‘Coach, Charles is going to play golf for 30 years and win a lot of tournaments. You have a great responsibility to a guy that dreams that high.’”
After years of success, Oklahoma State fired McGraw in 2013.
“We all have the job you dreamed of your whole life, and that’s what Oklahoma State was for me,” McGraw said. “There came with it unrealistic and unfair expectations for the position, and when I got fired, we were slightly missing those expectations.”
In 2014, a discouraged McGraw was hired as a co-head coach at Alabama to work alongside his friend Jay Seawell.
“He knew what he was doing — he was hiring a coach who was wounded and a shell of his former self,” McGraw said. “He told me, ‘I want the high school history teacher, the guy that loved coaching high school golf because of the players, to come out here.’”
During his lone season in Tuscaloosa, McGraw helped lead the Crimson Tide to a national championship — the third of his career.
When a program on the Brazos came calling after the season, McGraw answered. He called the move to Baylor the best thing that ever happened to him.
“At Baylor, I’ve never felt those drowning expectations I had at Oklahoma State,” McGraw said. “I don’t know how long I’ll get to coach, but being here at Baylor has been the absolute best decision I’ve ever made.”
McGraw hosts a podcast called “Better Than I Found It” and published a book by the same title in 2017, featuring a foreword written by Seawell. As a man of faith, McGraw is entering his 11th season in Waco, striving to echo that mentality.
“If you took it to a faith aspect, Christ left everything he touched better than he found it, and I want to constantly aim to represent that,” McGraw said. “I want every space that I fill to be better than it was before I got there. … I want the players I have here to be better people because they spent four years with me.”
The Bears are looking to bounce back after a down season. The team finished tied for 14th in the Big 12 last year, the worst finish of McGraw’s career.
“The first 10 years here, we were building and growing, but last year was the worst year I’ve ever had as a coach,” McGraw said. “I would like to bounce back from that this year.”
Men’s golf will head to Olympia Fields, Ill., this weekend to compete in the Fighting Illini Invitational tournament.
