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Jaren Wilkey/BYU
Bruce Brockbank has spent 40 years trying to get to the NCAA golf regionals, and a week from Monday, his No. 24-ranked BYU team will make it.
It will be his last.
Brockbank will officially retire as BYU’s head golf coach at the end of the season, and this trip to the regional at the University of Georgia Golf Course in Athens will wrap up a remarkable career filled with conference championships, tournament wins, All-America players, trophies, medals and tens of thousands of miles traveled.
This year, he’s got a solidly built team, players familiar with the winner’s circle and photo ops holding hardware, led by one of the best players in the country, freshman sensation Kihei Akina.
“I’ve been fortunate to have had some great guys, right?” said Brockbank on Friday.
I’ve been covering Brockbank since he played at Timpview High School as a junior member at Riverside Country Club with his brother Scott and other T-Bird stars like Chuck O’Brien.
Their mothers would call us at The Provo Daily Herald to be sure we had results of junior tournaments for the scoreboard page or a two-paragraph story.
Crazy. Here, I write about his retirement.
Brockbank is one of only a few golfers to have won the grueling week-long Utah State Amateur championship two times in his life. He is a member of the Utah Section of the PGA, although he has not played competitively in years.
He began his coaching career as an assistant to his own golf coach, the late legend Karl Tucker, at BYU. Brockbank started as a student-athlete on the golf team in 1985, was hired as an assistant coach in 1988 and installed as the head coach of BYU men’s golf in 1992.
He is a humble, kind and generous man, whose personality is easy to play with and compete alongside. His record as a college coach has been impressive.
Continuing the tradition Tucker started, Brockbank makes calls to some of his famous alums, including Johnny Miller, Pat McGowan, Keith Clearwater and Mike Reid to return to Provo for Cougar Day, and they regularly answer the call and come.
He has regularly called upon PGA Tour star Tony Finau to appear for clinics and fundraisers and Finau has participated.
“Every year you have just tremendous student-athletes that come from great families,” Brockbank said. “I’ve been fortunate at BYU to have a system and university where they expect a lot from their athletes because of what it stands for.
“It’s been a privilege to be able to coach there and be around these kids on a daily basis.”
Said BYU athletic director Brian Santiago in a statement when Brockbank’s retirement was announced: “Bruce Brockbank has made an incredible impact over his years at BYU and leaves a legacy that will long be remembered
“Bruce is revered in the college golf world and has represented BYU with class and character as a remarkable ambassador for everything BYU stands for. He has been all in on BYU and has always done things the right way. We look forward to celebrating Bruce’s hall-of-fame career at the conclusion of the season.“
From BYU’s announcement of Brockbank’s retirement, “Over the span of his head coaching career, Brockbank led his teams to 68 tournament victories and 25 NCAA Regional appearances. His teams won seven conference championships.
“Brockbank coached 24 all-Americans. He was a BYU assistant coach when Masters champion Mike Weir played for the Cougars. As head coach, his first recruit was Matt Thurmond, now Arizona State’s highly successful golf coach, who noted that his own experience at BYU as a student-athlete led him into coaching.”
The PGA Tour players Brockbank has had under his wing at BYU include Dean Wilson, Brad Sutterfield, Daniel Summerhays, Zac Blair, Patrick Fishburn and Peter Kuest. Clay Ogden won the U.S. Amateur Public Links title as a BYU golfer.
Brockbank was named conference coach of the year seven times and is a four-time GCAA District VII Coach of the Year.
Asked about his players, his coaching, his philosophy and his impact on his golfers, he keeps it simple as to what works.
“Sometimes you’ve just got to stay out of the way, and let them do their work, and it’s just fun to be able to associate and watch kids grow,” Brockbank said.
“I’ve always believed that 90 percent of the play is going to come from the players and then we can offer them that other 10 percent which is opportunities, places to be, schedules, tournaments, trips and all of that helps them go where they want to be. Only a small few make it to the next level in golf, but many become successful businessmen, fathers and husbands.”
The Cougars will have their work cut out for them in Georgia. They’ll face No. 1 ranked Auburn, the top seed in the field. As a No. 4 seed, this is BYU’s 28th appearance in a regional.
The 13 teams playing alongside BYU will consist of No. 1 Auburn, No. 12 Illinois, No. 13 Vanderbilt, host Georgia, Louisville, Kansas, Northwestern, College of Charleston, Rice, Southern Miss, Harvard and Howard.
UGA Golf Course, Georgia’s home course, is a 7,258-yard, par 71 course with a 75.1 rating.
“There are some awesome teams and, like every regional, it’s going to be loaded. You have to find a way to finish in one of the five spots to advance,” Brockbank said.
“Our team has had some success recently in regionals. Our confidence is high, but it doesn’t matter what you are ranked or where you are seeded because everyone is fighting hard to advance.”
Brockbank has never seen the Georgia course, but he called Georgia Tech golf coach Bruce Helper the other day for a scouting report.
He learned the course is very long with big, slopey greens. The Bermuda grass will be a challenge because the Cougars don’t play on that surface often and it makes a big difference in chipping the ball around the green because there tend to be fluffy lies.
“There’s a reason those teams that play Bermuda a lot seem to get the ball closer when chipping,” said Brockbank. “There’s an art to it, and teams in the East are used to it.”
Brockbank.
BYU is lucky to have had him wearing that Cougar cap all these years. The coach said he’s going to shift gears, be a grandpa and stay home more, but don’t be surprised if he shows up on tee boxes around the state.
It’s in his blood.