Spartans Head Golf Coach Casey Lubahn is Bringing Back the Program!

Michigan State men’s golf coach Casey Lubahn gets it.            Coaches of non-revenue producing sports need to be able to market their team

Michigan State men’s golf coach Casey Lubahn gets it. 

           Coaches of non-revenue producing sports need to be able to market their team and players, and there is no doubt Lubahn understands how to effectively do this. He joined us on Spartan Nation Radio and talked about it.

           “It’s always hard,” he admits, “but we want to be our own self promoters. College golf obviously isn’t as fan friendly as other sports.”

           The first-year MSU coach and former player and makes it work, though, and he says the effects can be seen on any of their trips away from East Lansing.

           “Where we see the impact,” he says, “is value not from ticket values but from people reaching out wanting to host us and be a part of our trips. For example, at Big Ten match play in February, we had a family reach out to us and say they wanted to host us, not in their club but in their home. They say ‘we want to feed you guys, we want to be around you guys.’ We’re getting so many of those offers now that we’re actually having to turn people down and say ‘hey, I’m sorry we already have a host booked for this week.’ People are asking to come to our practice rounds, too; it’s really incredible.”

           With such a long season, Lubahn says he is thankful to receive that kind of hospitality from supporters.  

The men’s college golf season starts the first weekend in September and goes through the first weekend of June, with about two months off in the middle for the holidays.

He says the long season can be helpful for northern teams like the Spartans, who do not have the option play outdoors year round. Therefore, the long season gives them time to catch back up to the southern teams once warm weather hits. Luckily, though, Lubahn says the lack of outside practice does not hurt teams now as much now as it may have hurt them in the past.

“It’s not too much to worry about now, and I can say that because of the results.  It may have been in the past when teams didn’t have access to facilities that we’re so lucky to have now, but we have really leveled the playing field with the support of our alumni and donors. We now have indoor facilities that really replicate what we play on outside.”

With four of the top 10 finishers in the NCAA championship last year having been Big Ten Conference teams, Casey feels confident saying that northern teams are very much able to compete.  

“There will always be a little bit of lag,” he says, “but by the time we get to May and then the April NCAA tournament, we’re right in there.” 

He credits this for northern players finally deciding to stay close to home; five of the eleven players on his roster are Michigan natives, with three others hailing from elsewhere in the Midwest.

“Local kids are staying home now to play their college golf,” he says, “whereas 20 years ago, they’d go south. Today they’re much less likely to leave.”

Lubahn himself is happy to be back home in Michigan after three years as Miami’s head golf coach. Prior to that, he worked as an assistant coach for the Spartans. 

This year, he has become friends with another former Spartan player who returned to lead his former team: first-year head hockey coach Tom Anastos.

Anastos invited Lubahn to sit behind the bench for a Spartan hockey game this season as an honorary coach.

“It was one of the greatest experiences of my professional and personal life,” Lubahn says. “I’m not a hockey guy – I’m becoming one, but I haven’t been in the past. They asked me for input and let me be a part of everything, and I walked away after 24 hours having learned more about coaching than I ever had.”

The Spartan golfers are now hard at work having just returned from Charlotte, North Carolina, where they competed in the Irish Creek Collegiate.  The team will be off Easter weekend before returning to competition the following week at Iowa’s Hawkeye Invitational.

The remainder of the season will be important for the team, as each tournament from September to June counts toward the NCAA tournament selection process – each one except for the alumni green and white exhibition, that is. This tournament took place in February with the current players traveling to Texas to take on some former Spartan golfers. As a former player himself, Lubahn competed against his players as a member of the white team.

“The green team won – that’s the current players – so it was a tough loss for us alums.”

He says that while he and the other alumni took the tough defeat, it was a bittersweet loss for him.

“You never like to lose, but as a coach you always love to see your players beat you.”