Nike Junior Golf Camps, Los Angeles

In her first season as head coach, Waite guided a young program with no seniors to a fourth-place finish in the Big West Championship, while sophomore Hannah Ko earned All-Big West honors after finishing in the Top 10.

The position is the first head coaching position for Waite, who has a wealth of experience as an assistant coach on the West Coast, spending three years at San Diego State after a stint on the coaching staff at Portland State.

Waite spent three seasons at San Diego State, where she played a critical role in recruitment, logistics and day-to-day coaching with the Aztecs. In her first season with San Diego State the Aztecs won the Mountain West Championship before finishing as the runners-up last season, and in both years SDSU reached the NCAA Regionals, earning an at-large selection in 2021.

The roster at San Diego State featured a mix of International players as well as California locals, a purposeful strategy that Waite helped realize with a mix of recruiting around the world along with utilizing local talent.

Prior to moving to San Diego, Waite served as a Volunteer Assistant Coach with her Alma Mater, Portland State, while also working as a golf pro at Fairbanks Ranch Country Club. A team captain with the Vikings, Waite also claimed a conference championship during her time at Portland State.

In addition to her collegiate duties, Giesecke coached the 2019 Toyota Junior Golf World Cup girls team in Japan.

Giesecke has moved the program to the top of the WAC since the Lopes' arrival in Division I. Giesecke guided GCU to a historic 2017-18 season, which included WAC Coach of the Year honors after the Lopes captured the WAC Championship and earned an NCAA Regional berth. GCU's 2020-21 Golfstat ranking reached No. 81 in the country, a program-best mark.

In addition to her WAC Championship and NCAA tournament squad, Giesecke has coached several award winners, including the WAC Freshman of the Year twice and 11 All-WAC award honorees.

Under Giesecke’s direction, the Lopes set numerous team records, including team scoring average, single-season birdies and the low team round. GCU recorded six team tournament victories during the Giesecke era.

Giesecke came to GCU from South Florida, where she had been an assistant coach under Marci Kornegay since 2013. While at USF, Giesecke helped the program rise in the national rankings and coached standout Ashley Burke to all-conference status and an NCAA regional berth.

Giesecke is a 2011 graduate of Indiana with a degree in Exercise Science with a minor in Coaching. She was a four-year member of the Hoosiers' golf team.

Prior to coaching at USF, Giesecke worked as the Junior Golf Manager of PGA of America's Georgia Section, helping organize and run junior golf tournaments. She also spent time with the American Junior Golf Association and International Junior Golf Tour.

Giesecke is from Kokomo, Indiana, and prepped at Northwestern High School, captaining a top-10 state tournament team.

Not only has Chico State been among one of the top 35 Division II teams nationwide every season between 2016–20, the Wildcats haves earned plenty of individual recognition under Green’s watch, racking up 17 All-CCAA awards, four All-West Region accolades and one All-America honor. For his efforts, Green was has twice been named CCAA Coach of the Year.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic erased the entire 2020–21 season, Green’s Wildcats came back strong in 2021–22, finishing in the top five in seven of the team’s 11 tournaments and reaching the NCAA Championship Tournament for the 14th straight season. Chico State ended the season ranked fourth in the West Region and No. 56 among all Division II programs. Chris Colla concluded his Wildcat career with All-CCAA and All-West Region honors, while Dakota Ochoa and Tyler Ashman earned All-CCAA nods.

Green’s 2019–20 edition of the Wildcats racked up five top 10 finishes in six tournaments before the season was abruptly halted in mid-March. Junior Myoung Kim finished in the top five in five events and led the ’Cats with a 73.2 strokes-per-round average, earning First Team All-CCAA honors, an All-West Region selection, and All-America Honorable Mention. As a team, Chico State occupied the No. 32 slot in the season’s final Golfstat Division II rankings.

Green led the Wildcats to a pair of tournament titles in 2018–19 and top five finishes in all but one of its nine regular season events to earn the top spot in the NCAA West Region rankings. Kelley Sullivan was named the CCAA Player of the Year, while Josh McCollum represented Chico State in the finals of the NCAA Championship Tournament in Daniels, West Virginia. Sullivan and McCollum received First Team All-CCAA honors, with Serge Kiriluk and Jordan Oliver earning All-CCAA Honorable Mentions. Green picked up his second straight CCAA Coach of the Year honor as the ’Cats wrapped up the season ranked fifth in the nation by the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) and No. 6 by Golfstat.

The ’Cats won two tournaments for Green in 2017–18 while posting eight top five finishes and claiming the NCAA’s No. 1 West Region ranking. In the postseason, Chico State won both stroke play and medal/match play to capture the program’s first CCAA men’s golf championship since 2012. The Wildcats came within a stroke of advancing to the NCAA Championships, finishing in a tie for seventh place at the West/South Central Regional Championships in Amarillo, Texas. Chico State wrapped up the season at No. 16 in the final Golfstat D-II team rankings.

In his first season at the helm, Green led the Wildcat men to three tournament wins—including the stroke play portion of the CCAA Championship Tournament—and seven top five finishes in 2016–17 to conclude the season ranked third in the West Region and 21st in the nation.

Prior to assuming the reigns of the men’s program, Green served as Chico State’s head women’s golf coach from 2014–17. In his three years with the program, the Wildcats set several program records (including the two lowest single-season team stroke averages) while notching 17 top five tournament finishes and earning two straight trips to the NCAA Championship Tournament.

Before joining the head coaching ranks, Green served as an assistant for both the Chico State men’s and women’s golf teams. Working with head coach TL Brown, Green helped steer the Wildcat men to a third-place finish at the 2010 national championships, and while serving as assistant for Kathy Dais, helped lead the women into the NCAA Championships for just the second time in the program’s history.

Green is in his 19th year with Chico State golf as either a player or coach, and has served as the common thread running through some of the best seasons in Chico State golf history. As a player (2003–07), he was part of an NCAA Championship runner-up and seventh-place finisher at the national championships, while posting a career strokes-per-round average of 76.2 and notching six top 20 tournament finishes. Green also excelled in the classroom, earning a pair of Academic All-America honors.

Green hails from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he was a four-time All-State athlete in golf, while also garnering All-State recognition in basketball.

Green earned his bachelors’ degree in Exercise Physiology from Chico State and received his master’s in kinesiology in 2010.

Green and his wife Lauren, an art teacher at River Valley High School in Yuba City, have two sons, Liam and Miles.

Outside of her general coaching duties, Yabut is responsible for coordinating the team's day-to-day operations. She also contributes to the fundraising process to aid the program's financial needs.

In her first season at the helm, Yabut helped a pair of Roadrunners lower their career averages by nearly a stroke or more in senior Kaleigh Irey (-0.76) and sophomore Gillian Galicia (-1.36). Aufa Rachmadya tallied the team’s best round of the season (72, E), which also tied for third-best in CSUB history. Yabut also aggressively recruited throughout the 2021-22 season, signing the area's top high school recruit, Iris Han, and California Junior College State Champion, Arlene Salvador, to National Letters of Intent to compete for the `Runners.

Yabut came to Bakersfield after coaching at Winona State University in Winona, Minn. during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons.

In her first season at WSU, Yabut helped the Warriors shave more than 40 shots off their team scoring average before the season was cut short due to the pandemic. Last season, Yabut led Winona State to a fifth-place finish at the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Championships, a three-spot improvement from the league’s 2019 championship, with all five WSU scorers placing in the tournament’s top-50.

Under Yabut’s tutelage, WSU sophomore Jessica Smith was named the 2021 NSIC Women’s Golf Elite 18 Award winner. Smith was honored for holding the highest cumulative grade-point average among all conference golfers.

Yabut is a 2018 Cum Laude graduate of Missouri Western State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Health & Exercise Science and competed four seasons on the Griffon golf team.

A team captain during her senior season, she led MWSU to the NCAA II National Championship Tournament in 2016 and 2017 and was named the school’s women’s golf scholar-athlete of the year in 2018. In 2016, it was Yabut’s playoff-round birdie putt that sent the Griffons to the school’s first ever National Tournament. She earned seven top-25 finishes during her collegiate career.

Yabut has also served as the Tournament Director and Junior Golf Coordinator at The Bridges Golf Course in Winona since 2019 and earned her LPGA Club Professional card in 2021.

Baxter nee Barrett was a four-year letterwinner at Long Beach State from 2005-08, earning first-team All-Big West honors in 2006 and playing a role in leading the program to its first ever NCAA Regional appearance in the same year. She also recorded a Top 10 conference finish as a senior in 2008.

Following her collegiate career, Baxter earned her teaching credential while continuing to play, competing professionally in the Cactus Tour before retiring and turning to work as a golf professional.

Starting as an assistant pro at Spanish Trail Country Club in her native Las Vegas, Baxter then moved to work at La Jolla Country Club before most recently joining the Callaway Golf Company, where she worked as a customer service representative through the pandemic.

Baxter also maintains a prominent role within the LPGA and PGA, where she is a Class A dual member as well as serving most recently as the Western Section Treasurer for the LPGA.

Sam has been involved in competitive sports since an early age, including 4 years of collegiate baseball so he knows and understands the commitment it takes to become an accomplished athlete.

Sam picked up the game of golf early on as well and has been teaching Nike Summer Camps for SVGolf for the past 3 years.

This May, Sam will graduate from college with the intent of getting his teaching credential and becoming a schoolteacher. His joy for teaching and passion for sharing knowledge with others has made him a great golf instructor!

Safety and fun are the reasons the camps grow each year. Kim personally trains her staff to ensure the instruction is consistent and purposeful. She teaches golf to adults and juniors of all levels and started playing golf herself at the age of four.