GEORGIA GOLF HISTORY
UGA HAS LONG BEEN AMONG NATION’S BEST
It all began in 1967, when Liz MurPerhaps no other player made the phey joined the UGA faculty as an impact that Vicki Goetze did in her assistant physical education protwo-season stint at Georgia. She fessor and golf coach. She graducapped her freshman year by shootally built Georgia into a national ing a tourney-record 65 on the last powerhouse...a status the Bulldogs day of the 1992 NCAA Championships in Tempe, Ariz., to win medalist have maintained for decades. honors by three over Arizona’s AnIn the past four decades, the nika Sorenstam. Bulldogs have earned four national In 2001, the Bulldogs captured championships – one team and three their first team national title. Georindividual titles. Georgia has won gia rallied from a four-shot deficit an SEC-best 19 team and individual entering the final round to best topleague titles. On the team front, Georgia has ranked Duke by three shots in Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla. finished among the top 20 schools UGA GOLF’S FOUNDING FEMALES at the national championships during Terri Moody (L) and Liz Murphey (R) take in the Premier amateurs 27 of the last 43 years – 20 of those Vicki Goetze arrived in Athens as in the top 10. UGA has captured 11 action at the 2000 Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic. SEC team crowns, including three Murphey started the program from scratch and was one of the most celebrated and dechead coach from 1967-87. She also was the senior orated junior golfers ever. Goetze was straight from 1997-99. woman administrator while UGA developed into a na- a six-time AJGA All-American and Individually, Georgia golfers have tional power in women’s athletics. Moody, an Athens posted 36 top-20 individual finishthree-time National Junior Golfer of native who was the first female to receive a full athes at nationals. Four of those came letic scholarship to UGA, paid major dividends on that the Year. She won the 1989 U.S. Amin 2001 alone, when Reilley Rankin, investment by winning the school’s first-ever national ateur during the summer after her sophomore year of high school and Laura Henderson, Angela Jerman and title in women’s intercollegiate athletics. won a second Am in 1992 following Summer Sirmons all did so en route her freshman campaign at UGA. to securing the team national title. Georgia golfers have also won three additional USGA titles and The aforementioned quartet is among 34 golfers who have been named All-America 60 times. In addition, Bulldogs have won international Bulldogs have several significant titles, including eight SEC individual titles, eight SEC Golfer of the Year honors the South American Am, Argentine Am, Brazilian Am, Canadian Am and Spanish Am. and nine SEC Freshman of the Year accolades. The year before Terri Moody won her individual national The quintet of coaches crown, she became UGA’s first representative in the Curtis Cup, In 1986, Beans Kelly, a member of Bulldog teams that fin- the biennial competition between top amateurs from the U.S. ished fourth and third at the 1982 and 1983 national champion- and Great Britain & Ireland. Bulldogs have represented the U.S. ships, respectively, took the reins from her mentor and con- six more times, as well as GB&I in 2008. tinued to build upon the foundation Liz Murphey established. Dominating the SEC in Beans’ “Glory Days” During Beans’ tenure from 1986-2000, Georgia collected seven Georgia owns an SEC-best 19 league titles – 11 team and eight SEC Championships, five SEC individual crowns and five top-10 individual – headlined by an unprecedented trio of sweeps at NCAA finishes. Todd McCorkle assumed the helm in 2000 and delivered the three straight SEC Championships from 1997-99. program’s first-ever team national title the following spring. Kelley Hester, a three-time All-SEC performer as the former Making a mark in the professional ranks Eighteen Bulldogs have gone on to play on the LPGA Tour, with Kelley Richardson, christened the newest chapter in Georgia Golf four topping $1 million in career earnings and the group winning lore in 2008 and led the Bulldogs to two more top-20s. Josh Brewer was named as the Bulldogs’ fifth head coach in more than $8.5 million combined. In addition, 29 Georgia golfers June 2012 and immediately began to build upon UGA’s rich golf have competed on the Futures Tour. Nanci Bowen won the 1995 Nabisco Dinah Shore, the first malegacy. He has led Georgia to 29 total championships (14 team and 14 individual) highlighted by sweeps of the team and indi- jor by a Georgia golfer. In 1986, Cindy (Pleger) Mackey became vidual titles at NCAA Regionals in 2016 and 2021. the initial former Bulldog to secure an LPGA win, a 16-shot victory at the MasterCard International that still stands as the Tour National titles make their way to Athens record for largest margin of victory. Georgia Golf owns four national championships – three individual crowns and one team title. Standouts in the classroom as well For all the success on the course, the Bulldogs’ academic resume Athens native Terri Moody became the Bulldogs’ first national medalist. She won the 1981 AIAW title at the UGA Golf Course, is equally impressive. The program has captured UGA’s Faculty Athletic Representatives Award – given annually to the women’s doing so in a three-hole playoff over Miami’s Patti Rizzo. Cindy Schreyer secured Georgia’s first NCAA medalist honor by and men’s teams with the highest GPAs – 13 times, most recently winning at the Innisbrook Resort in Tarpon Springs, Fla., in 1984. with a 3.55 in 2020-21. In 1998, Julia Boros earned the Edith Munson Award as the seShe did so in much the same style as Moody, in a three-hole sudden-death playoff win over SMU’s Martha Foyer and Miami’s nior All-American golfer with the highest GPA and was awarded an NCAA post-graduate scholarship. Michele Berteotti. 20 • 2021-22 georgia golf
