Brunswick, G.A. – College of Coastal Georgia men’s golf coach Mike Cook has suggested he might not ever coach a team as good as his 2015 national championship team.
Well, that remains to be seen. But, this is for certain. The Mariners can’t have any more All-Americans in the lineup than they had last week when they won the 2015 NAIA Men’s Golf National Championship in Daytona Beach, Fla., to claim their second straight national title.
On Tuesday, May 26th, 2015, Coastal Georgia learned that all five players who competed in the national tournament last week at LPGA International were chosen for the 2015 NAIA Men’s Golf All-America teams which are selected by the NAIA-Men’s Golf Coaches Association All-America Committee.
Three Coastal Georgia seniors – Alastair Tidcombe, Allen Bradford and Hunter Cornelius – were picked for the First Team while follow senior Alan Barnhardt and junior Trevor Smith were named to the Third Team.
“That’s awesome,” Cook said when learning the news. “That’s just a tribute to those five guys and how well they played this year. They never had a bad round. I know the committee that picks the teams is made of coaches, and their performance just speaks for itself. The coaches realized they had a lot of individual success this year.”
A total of 45 players were named to the three teams with 15 players placed on each team. Top-ranked Coastal Georgia and Oklahoma City, which was ranked second going into last week and finished tied for eighth at the national tournament, led all teams with five players each chosen for the All-America squads. The Stars had two first-team selections, two seconds and also a third.
Several other teams, including national runner-up William Woods (Mo.), which finished 11 shots back of the Mariners, had three players each chosen for the All-America teams. Sixteen of the 45 award winners were seniors, 15 were juniors, 12 were sophomores and two were freshmen.
“Three first-teamers, that’s just incredible,” said Cook, who was named NAIA Coach of the Year after the national tournament a second straight year. “I knew Tidcombe and Bradford would be first-team, and if Hunter Cornelius wasn’t already, that fourth-place finish last week sealed it for him. Alan Barnhardt and Trevor Smith were steady for us as well. It means a lot to me as a coach when our kids get honors like this.”
Tidcombe, Bradford and Cornelius had already been named NAIA Ping All-Americans by the Golf Coaches Association of America which announced its first-team winners at the awards ceremony following the national tournament.
The GCAA will announce its second- and third-team picks in the coming days and also will announce its national coach of year and player of year soon. Cook was named a finalist for the coaching award, which he won last year, during the national championship last week, while Tidcombe was listed among the finalists for the top player award.