Georgia Golf History

It all began in 1967, when Liz Murphey joined the UGA faculty as an assistant physical education professor and golf coach. She gradually built Georgia into a national powerhouse...a status the Bulldogs have maintained for decades.

In the past four decades, the Bulldogs have earned four national championships – one team and three individual titles. Georgia has won an SEC-best 19 team and individual league titles.

On the team front, Georgia has finished among the top 20 schools at the national championships during 27 of the last 43 years – 20 of those in the top 10. UGA has captured 11 SEC team crowns, including three straight from 1997-99.

Individually, Georgia golfers have posted 36 top-20 individual finishes at nationals. Four of those came in 2001 alone, when Reilley Rankin, Laura Henderson, Angela Jerman and Summer Sirmons all did so en route to securing the team national title. The aforementioned quartet is among 34 golfers who have been named All-America 60 times. In addition, Bulldogs have won eight SEC individual titles, eight SEC Golfer of the Year honors and nine SEC Freshman of the Year accolades.

The quintet of coaches

In 1986, Beans Kelly, a member of Bulldog teams that finished fourth and third at the 1982 and 1983 national championships, respectively, took the reins from her mentor and continued to build upon the foundation Liz Murphey established. During Beans’ tenure from 1986-2000, Georgia collected seven SEC Championships, five SEC individual crowns and five top-10 NCAA finishes.

Todd McCorkle assumed the helm in 2000 and delivered the program’s first-ever team national title the following spring.

Kelley Hester, a three-time All-SEC performer as the former Kelley Richardson, christened the newest chapter in Georgia Golf lore in 2008 and led the Bulldogs to two more top-20s. Josh Brewer was named as the Bulldogs’ fifth head coach in June 2012 and immediately began to build upon UGA’s rich golf legacy. He has led Georgia to 29 total championships (14 team and 14 individual) highlighted by sweeps of the team and individual titles at NCAA Regionals in 2016 and 2021.

National titles make their way to Athens

Georgia Golf owns four national championships – three individual crowns and one team title. Athens native Terri Moody became the Bulldogs’ first national medalist. She won the 1981 AIAW title at the UGA Golf Course, doing so in a three-hole playoff over Miami’s Patti Rizzo. Cindy Schreyer secured Georgia’s first NCAA medalist honor by winning at the Innisbrook Resort in Tarpon Springs, Fla., in 1984. She 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 Michele Berteotti.

Perhaps no other player made the impact that Vicki Goetze did in her two-season stint at Georgia. She capped her freshman year by shooting a tourney-record 65 on the last day of the 1992 NCAA Championships in Tempe, Ariz., to win medalist honors by three over Arizona’s Annika Sorenstam. In 2001, the Bulldogs captured their first team national title. Georgia rallied from a four-shot deficit entering the final round to best topranked Duke by three shots in HowUGA GOLF’S FOUNDING FEMALES ey-in-the-Hills, Fla. Terri Moody (L) and Liz Murphey (R) take in the action at the 2000 Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic. Murphey started the program from scratch and was head coach from 1967-87. She also was the senior woman administrator while UGA developed into a national power in women’s athletics. Moody, an Athens native who was the first female to receive a full athletic scholarship to UGA, paid major dividends on that investment by winning the school’s first-ever national title in women’s intercollegiate athletics. Premier amateurs Vicki Goetze arrived in Athens as one of the most celebrated and decorated junior golfers ever. Goetze was a six-time AJGA All-American and three-time National Junior Golfer of the Year. She won the 1989 U.S. Amateur during the summer after her sophomore year of high school and won a second Am in 1992 following her freshman campaign at UGA. Georgia golfers have also won three additional USGA titles and international Bulldogs have several significant titles, including the South American Am, Argentine Am, Brazilian Am, Canadian Am and Spanish Am. The year before Terri Moody won her individual national crown, she became UGA’s first representative in the Curtis Cup, the biennial competition between top amateurs from the U.S. and Great Britain & Ireland. Bulldogs have represented the U.S. six more times, as well as GB&I in 2008.

Dominating the SEC in Beans’ “Glory Days”

Georgia owns an SEC-best 19 league titles – 11 team and eight individual – headlined by an unprecedented trio of sweeps at three straight SEC Championships from 1997-99.

Making a mark in the professional ranks

Eighteen Bulldogs have gone on to play on the LPGA Tour, with four topping $1 million in career earnings and the group winning more than $8.5 million combined. In addition, 29 Georgia golfers have competed on the Futures Tour. Nanci Bowen won the 1995 Nabisco Dinah Shore, the first major by a Georgia golfer. In 1986, Cindy (Pleger) Mackey became the initial former Bulldog to secure an LPGA win, a 16-shot victory at the MasterCard International that still stands as the Tour record for largest margin of victory.

Standouts in the classroom as well

For all the success on the course, the Bulldogs’ academic resume is equally impressive. The program has captured UGA’s Faculty Athletic Representatives Award – given annually to the women’s and men’s teams with the highest GPAs – 13 times, most recently with a 3.55 in 2020-21. In 1998, Julia Boros earned the Edith Munson Award as the senior All-American golfer with the highest GPA and was awarded an NCAA post-graduate scholarship.