Taking Stock: How Arizona men’s golf is looking under coach Jim Anderson

The offseason is here, with all of Arizona’s sports done for 2023-24 season and the 2024-25 campaigns still a little ways away.

Which makes this a great time to step back and see how all of the Wildcats’ programs are doing, especially with the impending move to the Big 12 Conference.

Over the next few weeks we’ll take a look at each of the UA’s men’s and women’s athletic programs to see what shape they’re in and what prospects they have for the near future. We’ll break down each team and evaluate how it is performing under its current coaching staff, looking at the state of the program before he/she arrived and comparing it to now while also looking at the upcoming debut in the Big 12 and beyond.

Next up: Jim Anderson’s men’s golf team

How it looked before

Rick LaRose is the most successful coach in program history, leading Arizona to the 1992 NCAA title and coaching teams to nationals 23 times including 21 years in a row from 2007. When he retired in 2012 the choice to succeed him was a huge one for then-athletic director Greg Byrne, and he went with Texas A&M assistant Jim Anderson.

Anderson took over a program that had failed to make the NCAA Championships in two of the previous three seasons, with near-the-bottom finishes in the Pac-12 to go with that, and that trend continued during his first seven seasons. But since 2021 the results have been trending upward, starting with the first conference title since 2004 and then a return to nationals in 2022 after an 11-year hiatus.

Where things stand now

The Wildcats made nationals for the second time in three years in 2024, making the cut after three days of stroke play but falling short of making match play for the first time after a rough final round in Carlsbad, Calif.

But that 15th-place finish was Arizona’s best since placing 13^th in 2006, and the future looks incredibly bright with Sam Sommehauser the only graduating senior. The Wildcats are set to return top scorers Tiger Christensen, Filip Jakubcik, Zach Pollo and Johnny Walker as well as rising sophomore Tony Xiong, who made the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team.

Arizona also has one of the best practice facilities in the sport, as this year it opened the Clements Golf Center at Tucson Country Club. The $14.8 million project includes a golf lab named after UA great Jim Furyk.

What life in the Big 12 should look like

Six Big 12 schools made the NCAA championships this past season, but two (Oklahoma and Texas) have moved on to the SEC. Arizona finished ahead of three of its future conference foes, trailing Baylor by four strokes, while Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and West Virginia also made nationals.

Houston has the most NCAA men’s golf titles, with 16, but hasn’t made the championship tournament since 2016.

All 16 Big 12 schools participate in the sport.

One big question

Can Arizona turn its international pipeline into sustained success? The 2023-24 roster featured four players that were born outside the United States, though only one—sophomore Yannick Malik—came to the UA directly from overseas. The incoming recruiting class features signees from the Czech Republic (Matej Baca) and Japan (Taishi Moto).

Division I men’s golf teams only get 4.5 scholarships to split over the roster, so there will have to be more to getting international players than the financial assistance. The Clement Center was no doubt constructed partly for this purpose.