CSUSM men’s and women’s golf coach Greg Hutton led the Cougars with 13 tournament championships and seven of his players have earned National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics All-American selections.

Although he played some junior college golf before transferring to UC Davis. He played for the Aggies for a couple years, but decided towards the tail end of his time there to focus on school. Hutton said, “I had no desire to play professional golf … I wanted to graduate.”

“I had a friend who coached and had always told him I wanted to coach and said when he quit I was going to get the job, he quit and I got the job.”  

His coaching career started at Holy Names University in Oakland, California where they went to Nationals for five straight years and were ranked top five in the country.

Hutton moved to Escondido with his wife and planned to be the assistant men’s golf coach at CSUSM. However, Hutton found himself as the new head coach for CSUSM’s men’s Golf instead.

“Previous head coach here [CSUSM] had already offered me the spot to be his assistant. I figured I was coming to work here either way, and at nationals I found out that the head coaching position is open and I was moving down here either way, next thing you know I got the interview…so here I am.”

Greg Hutton has coached the men’s team at CSUSM for seven years, and the women’s team for the last three years.

In 2012-13 proved to be a successful year for Hutton who guided the cougars in their first Association Independent Institutions (A.I.I) conference championships and achieved a third-place in the NAIA All-America tournament.  

Hutton explained the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules for practicing and how much of his time is spent with rounds of golf and conditioning.

“With the NCAA, we are only aloud to practice a certain amount of time… twenty hours a week. So, unlike other sports where you may only practice for two hours a day, golf is not really practice, it’s more play. A typical round of golf takes about five hours, so two to three days a week for each team I’m looking at fifteen hours a week. Once you incorporate conditioning and workouts, my week is done.”

The biggest challenge Hutton said he faces while managing both teams, is coordinating tournaments because sometimes men’s and women’s tournament overlap, and he can only be at one place at a time.

Coach Hutton and CSUSM’s men golf team will be attending the NCAA Championships on April 4 at City of Industry, Hutton said he believes the team will do well in the conference and looks forward next season.  

“I think the men’s team did exactly what I expected them to do this year and next year its going to be an interesting year. I actually think next week from two weeks from now we have a chance to win…”