WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
NORMAN, Okla. — The Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) announced Tuesday that Kenyon College’s Grant Wallace was named the 2024 Golf Pride Grips Region V Coach of the Year.
The regional honor was the second in Wallace’s Kenyon career. In 2018, when the regions were named differently, Wallace was voted the GCAA Great Lakes Region Coach of the Year.
Wallace and his 2024 Kenyon team are coming off the best season in program history. The Owls won their second North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Championship in the past three seasons and, in so doing, earned an automatic berth into the NCAA Division III Championship. On the national stage, the Owls, at times, held first place before settling on a tie for eighth place in the 43-team field. That NCAA finish was the best in program history.
During the regular season, the Owls won three tournaments, including the conference championship, and set the program record for single-season team scoring average at 295.91 (or 73.98 per golfer). The 2024 squad also set team tournament records for scoring in a single 18-hole round, as well as for 54-hole and 72-hole tournaments.
Under Wallace’s watch, a record five individuals, including first-year Jonathan Oakes, were named to the 2024 All-NCAC team. Oakes, who was voted the NCAC Newcomer of the Year, went on to claim a tie for an individual sixth-place finish at the NCAA Championship and set the program single-season scoring average at 72.80
Wallace, who took over the Kenyon men’s golf program in the spring of 2013, has coached 33 All-NCAC players, including two Newcomers of the Year and three Players of the Year. He’s also coached 11 PING All-Region honorees and, to date, a pair of GCAA/PING All-Americans.
Named the 2024 NCAC Coach of the Year, Wallace has now earned the conference honor four times in the past 10 seasons. He possesses 20 career tournament wins and every one of his teams were named GCAA All-Academic Teams. Five of those teams earned the GCAA President’s Special Recognition for maintaining a team grade point average of 3.5 or better.
