‘This was my destiny’: Inside the team that brought Auburn its first national men’s golf title

CARLSBAD, Calif. – The seating area in Bar Traza, Omni La Costa Resort and Spa’s late-night spot for libations and light bites, was jam-packed with Auburn supporters when Tigers senior J.M. Butler walked into the room, still donning his national-championship T-shirt.

The ovation was deafening.

Just a couple hours earlier, Butler had capped a dominant match-play performance with a 2-and-1 victory over Florida State’s Luke Clanton that earned Butler the clinching point and Auburn its first NCAA Championship in men’s golf.

That’s exactly what Butler promised Tigers head coach Nick Clinard as a high-school senior, sitting in Clinard’s office on a recruiting visit and proclaiming, “I want to win a national championship, and if I come to Auburn, that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Here he is now,” Clinard said, “a senior, on his last hole of college golf, and he got it done for us.”

Added Butler: “This was my destiny.”

The top-ranked team in the country entering the week, Auburn not only won 10 stroke-play tournaments, two shy of Cal’s modern-day NCAA record (12, 2012-13), but the Tigers also lost to just nine teams all season – five of those losses came in stroke play at La Costa – and completed the year with a perfect 8-0 record in match play, a ledger topped by Wednesday’s thrilling 3-2 win over fifth-ranked Florida State.

“I told them before we got here, if they won this golf tournament, they could go down as one of the best teams in the history of college golf,” Clinard said, “and I think we’ve accomplished that.”

It took a village.

•••

IN TRUE ROCKY BALBOA fashion, Butler can often be found scaling the thousands of steps at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Most times, he’s alone. And when he’s not doing that, he’s in the gym.

“He’s a big fitness guy,” Clinard says.

Butler, a psychology major who will graduate this summer before embarking on his professional career, says he’s constantly studying the greatest athletes of all-time – how they train, how they think, how they control their breathing. As a Louisville native, Butler especially idolizes legendary boxer Muhammad Ali.

“I’m just trying to figure out what made them great,” Butler said, “and how I can take what they do and add that to my game.”

Butler is only the second player in program history to achieve All-SEC status four times. He spent time as the nation’s top-ranked player as a sophomore, though he truly broke out at last summer’s U.S. Amateur, advancing to the semifinals at Cherry Hills before falling to Ohio State’s Neal Shipley.

On Tuesday at La Costa, Butler got his revenge on Shipley, downing the reigning Masters low amateur, 2 and 1, to help send the Tigers to their first NCAA final. Butler never trailed in any match at nationals, and for the season, he went 6-2 in the format.

For Clinard, despite a “rocky spring” that saw Butler win twice but also finish T-49 or worse three times prior to the postseason, there was no other player he wanted in the anchor spot.

“He’s the guy who wants the golf ball in his hands,” Clinard said. “He just hit clutch shot after clutch shot. A lot of guts, and a lot of heart.”

Butler didn’t lead Clanton, a three-time winner this spring, by more than 1 up until the par-4 15^th hole, when Clanton sent his approach bounding over the green, down a steep slope and into the water. Butler then nearly holed a bunker shot at the par-3 16^th before sealing the deal with a routine par at the par-4 penultimate hole, where Clanton’s birdie chip hit the back of the cup and bounced out, sending Clanton collapsing to the ground; he’d lay on his back for several seconds.

Moments later, Butler was being mobbed by his teammates, who tackled him to the ground. No uppercut needed.

Still sore from the celebration, Butler said, “I don’t know how you can beat this.”

•••

FOR THE FIRST TIME since Alabama’s Justin Thomas in 2012, a freshman won the Haskins Award, the sport’s only player of the year that is selected by players and coaches. That was Jackson Koivun, who also claimed the Hogan and Nicklaus awards, plus the Phil Mickelson Award as the nation’s top freshman.

“He was the best player in the country coming in,” Clinard said, “but I didn’t think he was going to do this.”

The soft-spoken Koivun finished sixth or better in all but one of his 12 starts. He won the SEC individual title by a whopping six shots and went a perfect 8-0 in match play. In the quarterfinals and semifinals, it was Koivun who made the clinching putt for the Tigers. Not surprising if you consider that Auburn volunteer assistant Buddy Alexander, who won two NCAA titles as Florida’s head coach, called Koivun, “The best putter I’ve ever seen at that age.”

And Alexander coached a guy by the name of Brian Gay.

“He’s dynamic with the flatstick in his hands,” Clinard added.

Perhaps the only weakness in Koivun’s game is his chipping. But what did he do Wednesday to put away Brett Roberts, 5 and 4? He chipped in from behind the 14^th green.

“I walked by Brendan Valdes after that, and he goes, “Oh, I guess Jackson let you out of work early today,’” Clinard said, laughing. “He’s just a winner.”

With as much as Koivun accomplished individually this season, he’d never smiled as wide as he did Wednesday night when asked how an NCAA team title compared.

“This tops all of them,” he said.

•••

SPEAKING OF SMILING, NO one on the Auburn team does it more than Valdes, the junior from Orlando, Florida, who Clinard says has an infectious personality.

“Buddy always tells me, look like you’re having a joyous time,” Valdes said.

After winning four of five holes Wednesday against Frederik Kjettrup to flip their match and take a 3-up lead after 10 holes, Valdes was downright buzzing. Five holes later, Valdes was a 4-and-3 winner.

Valdes also joined Koivun as a first-team All-American, and he might be the most athletic person on the team, according to Clinard. Valdes is a former gymnast who excelled in all five disciplines. He can clear a 48-inch box jump and hovers around 185 mph ball speed. And when he gets hot, he can rattle off birdies with the best of them.

“He’s going to do very well on the Tour,” Clinard said, “because he’s going to have seven to eight weeks where he shoots 20 under.”

•••

CLINARD WAS SPEAKING TO a group of Alabama high school golf coaches a few years ago when one pulled him aside and said, “There’s a kid who just moved here from Australia who you should look at.”

“I’m like, yeah, I’ve heard that one before,” Clinard recalled.

The coach, who coached at a rival high school, replied, “It would be worth your time.”

That kid was Josiah Gilbert.

The son of Jeremy Gilbert, the director of instruction at Capitol Hill in Prattville, Alabama, and the oldest of five siblings, Gilbert never had his own room until moving into his dorm at Auburn. Though under the radar, largely due to the pandemic, Gilbert picked the Tigers over rival Alabama.

But he went eight starts before finally cracking the starting lineup for Auburn at its final event leading into conference, the Mossy Oak Collegiate. Clinard admits he “rolled the dice a little bit” in inserting Gilbert into the counting squad, but he loved his PGA Tour-level skillset. Plus, back in January, Alexander had told Clinard that Gilbert would be in the postseason lineup.

“Just you wait,” Alexander said to Clinard, who was skeptical at the time.

Gilbert took the opportunity and ran with it. He finished solo fifth as the Tigers swept the top five finishing positions. He then closed SECs with a bogey-free 68 before going 3-0 in match play, and he followed that with another top-5 at the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional.

“I feel like it’s just a matter of time before some of us find our groove,” Gilbert said, “and that’s what I did this spring.”

•••

CARSON BACHA IS THE type of kid, Clinard says, who you’d want you daughter to marry. He’s a skilled ball-striker, a finance major who holds a 3.5 GPA, and unquestionably the smartest worker on the team.

But after a T-11 finish at Auburn’s fall opener, the Mirabel Maui Jim Intercollegiate, Bacha fell out of the lineup. At least until the calendar hits April, Clinard has his players qualify for every spot; Bacha wasn’t playing poorly, he was just on the wrong end of a deep roster.

“It makes you tougher at the end of the year,” Clinard says of his methods.

Bacha, who began working with instructor Mark Blackburn this season to correct his tendency to sometimes over-draw the golf ball, responded, posting six straight top-6 finishes entering SECs. He never surrendered his place in the lineup after that.

“Coach always talks about how this sort of stuff takes all of us, and we’re constantly pushing each other back home,” Bacha said. “Qualifying is one of the hardest tournaments we play all year. Obviously, it’s great to have that kind of depth, and you’re really working hard at home, and when you’re able to break through in qualifying, it really builds confidence.”

•••

AFTER PROFESSIONAL GOLF DIDN’T work out, Clinard figured his next step would be as a golf instructor. Then, in 2001, UCF was looking for a head men’s golf coach.

So, Clinard dialed then Knights’ athletic director, Steve Sloan, who had recruited Clinard’s brother while the head football coach at Duke. After some conversation, Clinard, a 28-year-old with zero experience, inquired about the job opening.

When he was eventually offered the position, which paid $25,000 per year with no benefits, Clinard jumped at the opportunity, saying, “I’ll take it!”

“My office was in a trailer, and I just went to work,” Clinard said. “And I didn’t really know what I was doing, to be honest.”

Eight years later, Clinard was hired by Auburn. He brought with him future PGA Tour pro Blayne Barber, who helped Clinard lay a strong foundation. He also led the revamp of the Tigers’ practice facility. On the golf course, Auburn has now reached 11 of 13 NCAA Championships under Clinard. The Tigers advanced to the national semifinals in 2018 at Karsten Creek, and in each of the past two seasons, they notched top-10s at the NCAA Championship, though fell just short of match play both times.

“I joked with our A.D.; we’ve now made nine ‘Sweet 16s’ the last 15 years,” Clinard said. “I said, ‘Hell, if I was Bruce Pearl, you’d build me a damn shrine.’”

Added Alexander: “No one works harder than Nick.”

But on the morning of Auburn’s national-championship bout with Florida State, Clinard redirected the praise. He’s long said, as a golf coach, “30% of coaching is golf; the rest is life.” His teams don’t chase expectations but rather standards. None of this is about him.

“I don’t need this win today to validate my career,” Clinard said as he sipped a coffee in the same room that would serve as Auburn’s after-party that night. “I’d love to win one for these players, for all the past players who made this program great, and obviously, would love to win one for the Auburn family.”

If the toilet paper streaming from the oaks at Toomer’s Corner back on the Auburn campus late Wednesday night was proof, the achievement was much appreciated.

And Butler’s guarantee fulfilled.