3/19/25: Mo Egger with UC Men's Golf Head Coach Doug Martin

The UC Men's Golf team mounted a comeback to win The Johnnie-O Golf Tournament in Sea Island, Georgia. Head Coach Doug Martin joined us on ESPN1530.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The men's golf coach at the University of Cincinnati. Head
coach at the University of Cincinnati, Doug Martin said this
about the bearcats recent victory in the Johnny OH at
Sea Island, Georgia. Quote, I can honestly say I have
never seen such a comeback in all my years coaching.
This gives us a lot to build on. They win

(00:20):
their first, I'm sorry, their second event of I think
we call this the spring part of their schedule. They
win the Johnny Oh and now they head out west.
They'll be in the Oregon Duck Invitational next week and
then the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate in Arizona. The men's golf
coach head coach at the University of Cincinnati is Doug
Martin an incredible comeback, unlike anything you have experienced in

(00:43):
this sport. Why was it so amazing?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Well, I think you know, first of all, you know,
we've we've gotten off to a little bit of a
slow start this spring, and you know, we really haven't.
We haven't putted as well as we need putt to
really play at the level that that I'm hoping for.
And you know, we're we're sitting in seventh place with
about eight or nine holes to go in the tournament,

(01:08):
and we just we had three guys excuse me, two
guys birdie three their last four, one guy birdy two
of his last four, and one guy birdie one of
his last four. And you know, the field, the shield
was very tightly contested. I mean everybody basically twelve of
the thirteen teams that were in this tournament, you know,
they're all we're all kind of in that last ten

(01:33):
to twelve spots in the NCAA projected field right now.
So you know, it's obviously a significant week. But anytime
you have teams that are that close, and in college golf,
the thing that makes college golf so unique is you're
playing five guys counting your four best scores, so you
can play start the round five shots behind, play one hole,

(01:57):
they make five voguies, you make five verdies, and you've
picked up four shots. So the the change and you
know how how crazy is. And you know, as a coach,
one of the things that makes you know, our sport
unique is it's myself and my assistant trying to watch
five guys play golf, you know, which is which is
nearly impossible, you know. So we're we're one sport where

(02:20):
we don't always get to see the action. And so,
you know, we're coming down the into the round yesterday
and I'm with one of our freshmen and really trying
to you know, help him with his game and understand
how to manage his game and shoot a score. And
so I'm not around any of the other four guys,
and my assistant sends me a text and he goes, hey,

(02:44):
Ryan's made one, Connor's made two, and Michael's just made three,
three in a row. And I'm like, well, Leo just
made two, and I said, we got one hole left.
And we're with the freshman. So we're we're doing all
this through text, and you know, we have a leaderboard
that is you know, respectfully live, but you know, it

(03:06):
all depends when scoring is is put in. And the
freshman lass Toole makes about a fifteen footer across the
green and we finish up and the leaderboard shows that,
you know, we're winning by a shot, and I mean,
I was speechless, honestly, because I've never seen anything. I've
never seen it happen that fast. You know, it was,

(03:30):
you know, it's I'm just so proud of my guys
really for hanging in there. And you know, it's just me.
I just even today, Mom's sitting here today, and I've
talked to a couple of people that I said, you know,
I really don't know that I believe it happened, but
but it was just it's college golf at its best,

(03:51):
and you know, it's just our sport right now is
probably as competitive as it's ever been and as deep
as it's ever been. So U is any any time
you win you want to celebrate a victory.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, I can understand that. You sort of you kind
of answered what one of my questions was going to be,
which is, you obviously can't be with every golfer at
the same time. So what does a head coach of
a golf program do during an event like this?

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Well, my assistant, my assistant and we do a lot
of our coaching at home before we get on the road,
and then you have to have the trust level of
the players that you've kind of built through your program.
So right now, we have two seniors, two juniors, and
one freshman in our lineup at the moment, and all

(04:40):
of those older players we have spent time with them
at a tournament. So so what I basically did this
past week was I took the freshman, I walked with him,
coached him, and just kind of, you know, really tried
to get him to understand, you know, getting to the
right yard age, picking the right club, you know, picking

(05:03):
the get in the wind direction right, just all those things.
And then probably in another year, another year and a
half will turn him off and we'll take another freshman.
And so you're basically you're basically doing you know, you're
you're coaching in live action with your player, and you
can you basically can do everything for him but hit

(05:24):
the shot. So you know he was you know, we
finished up the tournament, he was like coach man, he goes,
that was unbelievably helpful, you being with me with every shot,
and you know, you're just college golf happens so fast.
The game is. You know, you go from junior golf
to college golf, and it's like any other sport. You know,

(05:44):
you very rarely see a freshman play football. You're very
rarely see a freshman, you know, kill it in basketball.
You know there's that there's that line of experience, and
you know we're trying to get these guys to where
they can learn to do it on their own.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
On Monday, you had an delay. Now I don't like
it when the line is too long to get a
drink at the turn. How do you handle an eight
hour delay? What do you do during that time?

Speaker 2 (06:10):
So, you know, Sea Island, we were right out on
the peninsula and we had well it was you know,
if you watched any of the playoffs between mclroy and
JJ Spawn, you saw the crazy winds that were blowing
at Sawgrass. Well, we had those same wins, except we
had gusts up to forty miles an hour. So we played.

(06:31):
We played one hole and at all these tournaments we
have like a group me chat to where you know,
if there's a rules official needed or something, you know,
we've got that on our phone. And so I'm on
the first hole with this freshman and my group me
is just blowing up on and me just keep getting
these notifications. Well, and its coaches were saying, listen, the

(06:51):
ball won't stay on the green, and so it was
blowing so hard out there on the peninsula. There were
like five holes where you drop the ball in the
middle of the green and the wind just blew it
off into a bunker off the green, and so we
had to wait till the till the wind subsided. And
most of our events in college golf for fifty four holes,
and you know, we had that delay, and we waited

(07:14):
until the wind gusts went down to twenty eight, believe
it or not, and then we went back out at
about four point thirty that afternoon and played twelve holes
knowing that we could get twenty four in easily on
Tuesday and that would complete our thirty six whole event.
You know, it's not fifty four holes, which we desire,
but still it was the championship.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, at a well earned and hard fought one. How
do you how do you choose which events your team's
going to play in?

Speaker 2 (07:42):
So it comes a lot down to the field. So,
you know, I have a certain way that I like
to start my spring semester. So we go to Hilton
Head and play in Michigan State's event, and then we
go here at Sea Island to play Rutgers event. And
so the both of those fields have a couple of

(08:03):
Southern schools, but they're primarily Big ten and a few
Big twelve schools like Kansas State, Iowa State, Cincinnati were
at Callton River, and then this week it was US
and Kansas at Sea Island. So we're really basically, you know,
we don't play at conference schedule. The only thing we
do is we meet at the end of April and

(08:24):
we play a conference championship, so that's really the only
time we ever see all of the other teams. So
you know, we we basically I pick it a lot
of golf courses that I think are great for my
kids to play an experience where we played at Sea Island,
that's where the RSM PGA Tour event is. We we

(08:48):
leave Friday to go out to Eugene, Oregon, to Eugene
Country Club. That's where the national championship was five years ago.
It's the first time we've gone out west. So, you know,
I try to put my players in front of situation
so at the end of their careers here if they
decide to turn professionals, that they're ready to go.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
If you ever need a guy to do any like
advanced scouting and you know, go just past the course
out you know, I could be available.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Okay, if I told if I told you where we've
been so far this spring, because we we do all
online schooling in the spring and so we can kind
of go and practice before some of these trips. We've
we've been to some unbelievable places already the semester.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Wow, all right, well, uh, you know again, if if
you're like, you know what, we need somebody to get
the lay of the land. Keep me in mind.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Okay, Hey, if you ever want to come with us,
just let me know. Let me know.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
You say that when I when I send you like
a text going hey, coach, I'm in this weekend.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Just let me know, let me know, and we'll let
you come along and see what college golf is all about.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
That'd be uh, that'd be a bleast. Well, congratulations on
the win and the Johnny jo and uh hopefully we
can do it again as a season unfolds.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah. Absolutely, I appreciate you having me on. I really
enjoy your show and love what you do here for
the for the town of cincinna at it with your
program each day.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Well, that's very kind of the coach. Thank you so much.
Doug Martin, the head coach of the men's golf program
at the University of sinc I.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Coach, thank you. Yeah, thank you,