In the mix for a championship

Jocelyn Bruch didn’t know she’d hit a hole in one in last week’s women’s golf regionals until she walked up to the putting green, expecting to find her ball a few yards past the hole, only to be told it was a few inches underground.

“It was kind of like a mild moment,” Bruch, a senior who graduated four days later, said. “No one in my group really freaked out.”

It was, after all, just the seventh hole on the front nine. Bruch had more good golf to play and she played it, shooting a 74 (+2) for Purdue to lead the team on what her coach called the hardest day he’s ever coached, with wind speed and competitive pressure both high.

The Boilermakers jumped to first place from second on that front nine, eventually settling back to runners-up in a field that included four ranked teams, three of which finished behind them. In doing so, they’re back in the NCAA Championships after a narrow miss last season. It’s a place the program expects to be, as the Big Ten’s only national champion in 2010 with sustained success since.

“It was an intimidating job to hop into,” said second-year head coach Zach Byrd, who took the reins from double hall-of-famer (men’s and women’s) Devon Brouse last season. “A couple three putts kept us from making nationals (last season) in a year that I don't think very many people were giving us much of a chance.

“We've killed it in recruiting. So for (senior All-Big Ten Ashley Kozlowski) to be able to go out at a natty was huge for us,” Byrd said. “That was kind of the message all spring, was ‘Send her out with the chance to win it all,’ and that's what we did.”

Purdue left Tuesday afternoon for Carlsbad, California, where it will have a few days of preparation before play begins Friday in a 30 team field that will whittle down to eight for a championship-deciding final day May 22.

It’ll be a return home for freshman Jasmine Kahler, a return to a course she’s played over and over – if only it had the same layout. Renovations on the course broke ground in January 2023, and the changes were significant.

“She’s like, ‘It’s kind of a new place for us,’” Byrd said. “I’m expecting it to be super firm and really hard. I hope it is like concrete and it's windy, because that's what we do best.”

Kahler, ranked 29th in the country out of high school, began the season as a coin flip to even start, and she’s now finished in the top 25 scorers in the field for five straight weeks. “Pretty remarkable for an 18-year-old,” Byrd said.

Big shoes, but a big draw

Brouse was synonymous with Purdue golf before the coach retired in 2022.

After earning a bachelor’s in turf agronomy at Purdue in 1971, Brouse started in the Indianapolis Parks golf department before taking a job to manage the University of North Carolina’s golf course and athletic surfaces.

That turned into a coaching role, he told The Exponent around the time of his retirement, which eventually led to a four-year courting process for his services by former Purdue AD Morgan Burke.

He took the job at Purdue in 1998 and presided over the facilities and both men’s and women’s teams until a men’s head coach was hired in 2013, when he transitioned to coach the women three years after winning a national title with them. He relied on a group of five international players for that trophy, and that far-reaching recruiting strategy coupled with the success and university support he garnered in a cold-winter state perhaps defined his legacy.

So when Byrd was brought in, the coach was, as he said, intimidated.

The 38-year-old had played professionally for 10 years before taking coaching jobs at Colorado State and Ole Miss, but only as an assistant.

He brought in star recruits for the Rebels, and with his deep tan, shades and an outfit Monday that included what appeared to be a snakeskin belt, he looks the part of a salesman. Purdue knew they were getting a recruiter in Byrd, but what else?

Two years in, his coaching style is what Kozlowski goes to immediately when describing his impact.

“I think he’s done a really good job of helping build each individual person on their own,” she said. “You have to kind of individualize to help other people's weaknesses and strengths. He's like, the most supportive person ever, like he's always there for you, always there helping you and hyping you up.”

Byrd believes in hype, and he believes in fun, just about as much as the business of playing good golf, of staying level-headed and tight-lipped even after a hole in one.

“We just went to dinner after spending 10 straight months together as a team,” Byrd said. “And we had just as much fun then as we did in August.”

“I think that's why you see us play in a lot better this time of year,” he said. “You know, you don't get a break in college golf. You're there from August until May, and if you have any drama and any issue on your team, that stuff leaks in. So it’s not all business all the time.”

A hidden strength?

The reason Brouse turned international with his recruiting was that the players he was used to getting, thought he should be getting, weren’t choosing Purdue.

“I was getting no from a couple of players from Indiana who were national-caliber players,” Brouse said. “Getting a ‘no’ from a couple of Midwestern players that got Sunbelt opportunities and they opted not to come to Purdue. And in a couple of cases, they were legacies of Purdue, their parents went here, and yet we lost them to (southern schools).”

A map of women’s golf titles shows residency across the bottom of the US in a big smiley face, from Stanford in West-Central California to Duke in South Carolina. The face has two very oddly placed eyes in West Lafayette and Washington.

Purdue’s recruiting has since returned to the US, even if still largely outside the Midwest; all but one player on the roster is from the States. The training, though? That’s another story, compared to the south.

“We gotta get creative,” Byrd said. “We have a great indoor facility and we tell recruits, ‘Look, it's not as bad as you think. We can work on a lot of things in the winter that you don't usually work on. If you're out on the grass and you're playing golf every single day, you're not working on a lot of technique that we can work on when we're inside here.’

“I’m a recruiter,” Byrd said. “I want to spin it to a positive.”

In fact, it was his first recruit, All-Big Ten player Momo Sugiyama, who came from Hawaii having hardly needed to play inside her whole life. She got better over the winters with Byrd working on things she’s never done before.

“We've had success here in the past, we've won in the past,” Byrd said. “You can do it again here. They have every bone that we need here.”