Two down, seven to go.
Since Naomi Emerick was born about four weeks ago, her father’s USD men’s golf team has played two tournaments and won them both.
“Knock on wood, but undefeated as a dad,” Evan Emerick said the other day, sitting in his office at the USD Sports Center. “Which is funny. I know it’s gonna end, but it’s pretty cool to say.”
Well … it doesn’t have to end, right?
“It doesn’t have to,” Emerick said, “but golf’s hard and it probably will.”
It’s been a great start for Emerick, who took over last summer after Chris Riley resigned. But even though the Oceanside native is just 34, in his first year as a head coach, he has been around golf long enough to know that, yes, it is hard, and no, no one wins all the time.
“But it’s cool to say for now,” he said.
Both his parents played golf and now run the North County Junior Golf Association, and Evan recalled banging around with plastic clubs when he was 3. He played at Carlsbad High School and San Diego State before ing Aztecs coach Ryan Donovan’s staff after graduation.
“Ryan, who is a great mentor and great friend, asked me to help out, so I did it for a semester and fell in love with it,” Emerick said. “I just realized coaching was a super important ion of mine and just kind of rolled with it and worked hard and here we are.”
He spent 10 years with Donovan at SDSU (he said he remains close to several players, including Xander Schauffele and his caddie Austin Kaiser), before leaving to try working as a club fitter for Titleist in Oceanside. He realized within a few months that he missed coaching and landed a job last season as associate head coach at USC. He got the USD job in June.
“I saw an energetic and aspiring coach who is innovative and not afraid to take chances,” said Kimya Massey, USD’s athletic director. “I also loved how ingrained he is within the San Diego golf community. He also had a proven track record of connecting with his athletes and pushing them to perform on a high level. The combination of those three things made him an easy choice within a competitive search.”
Emerick and his team have made the decision look very wise. The Toreros have won both their tournaments in 2025, including The Prestige in La Quinta, where they prevailed by 16 shots in a 24-team field that included three teams in the Golfweek Top 25 – No. 7 North Carolina, No. 18 Texas Tech and No. 21 Pepperdine. USD followed up the next week by tying host Fresno State for first place in the Nick Watney Invitational in Fresno. USD also captured the Visit Stockton Pacific Invitational in the fall.
Next up: Co-hosting the R.E.L. Invitational on Monday and Tuesday at San Diego Country Club with Donovan’s No. 25-ranked San Diego State team. There are three more tournaments before the WCC Championship, hopefully followed by the NCAA Regionals and, ultimately, the NCAA Championship just up the road at Omni La Costa North.
“I think I really understand Southern California and it’s a spot where being at San Diego State for so long, I kind of understood what this program was about, so it was easier to come in,” Emerick said. “I am really close with Chris Riley, really close with Tim Mickelson (USD’s coach from 2003-11), and they really led the way. … This is a team thing. It’s not just about me, it’s D. I have a great associate in Sam Foust so I’m super lucky.”
This year’s team was pretty much set under Riley and Foust before Emerick arrived. Sophomore Ryan Abuan, who is from Temecula Great Oak High School, has the lone individual victory, at The Prestige, but grad student Jaden Cantafio tied for second in Fresno and last fall, sophomore You Seong Choi tied for second twice and added another top-five finish. The latter two are from Orange County, while the other starters are Canadian freshman Cooper Humphreys and senior Ian Maspat from Scripps Ranch.
To Emerick, the role of college golf coach today is less about “coaching” golf and more about everything else: motivator, mentor, manager, er.
“Obviously a lot of these players come in with swing coaches and all that kind of stuff,” he said, “so we really kind of focus on course management, short game, building relationships with their swing coaches. Then just truly help them. Be a mentor, be a er, help them learn when they’re making a few mental mistakes on the course and how they can eliminate them. Just kind of those areas, but I don’t really want to be the technical coach … or I’d be a swing coach.
“I try to wear different hats. I want to have our players’ respect so they can come to me if they need something. I want to build our relationship so when they graduate, they’re still coming to me. That’s kind of my ion.”
