THE FLATS – Bruce Heppler, one of the most decorated head coaches in college golf history, has announced that he will retire following the conclusion of the 2025-26 season, his 31st at the helm of Georgia Tech golf.

“Georgia Tech is a special place, and to be a part of this school, this athletics department and this historic golf program has been an honor,” Heppler said. “It’s meaningful to me that my career as a head coach, and all of the relationships that come with that, are tied to one place – Georgia Tech.

“To the men that have come through our program: I’ve had the privilege of having a front-row seat to when many of your dreams came true, and to see the growth in each one of you. I hope that maybe we’ve altered your course in some small way – not just as golfers, but as people, husbands and fathers.

“I’d also like to acknowledge the generosity of those who have donated to our program over the years. Nothing could have been achieved without those resources that you provided. (Former athletics director) Homer Rice told me when he hired me that I won’t find a place that people love more than here at Georgia Tech, and that has proven to be true. The trophies will stay here, but the relationships will travel. The goal when I arrived on The Flats in 1995 was to leave things better than I found them, and I hope that is the case.”

Since taking over as Georgia Tech’s head coach in 1995, Heppler has guided the Yellow Jackets to 27-straight NCAA regionals (every season since 1998), 22 NCAA finals and four national runner-up finishes. Most recently, the Jackets advanced to the NCAA semifinals in both 2023 and 2024, earning their fourth second-place finish under Heppler in ’23 and tying for third in ’24. Since 2000, Tech has finished outside the top 10 in college golf’s major polls only five times.

His 73 tournament wins as Tech’s head coach include six NCAA regional championships, most recently in 2022 and 2023.

On the conference level, he’s led Georgia Tech to 14 Atlantic Coast Conference championships (most recently in 2023), which is the third-most by any coach in ACC men’s golf history. He is a 10-time ACC Coach of the Year (1999, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2019).

Individually, he has coached two NCAA champions (Troy Matteson in 2002 and Hiroshi Tai in 2024), three national players of the year (Matt Kuchar in 1998 and 2000, Bryce Molder in 2001 and Matteson in 2002), three U.S. Amateur champions (Kuchar in 1997, Andy Ogletree in 2019 and Tyler Strafaci in 2020) and a British Amateur champ (Christo Lamprecht in 2023). Only one other coach in NCAA history – Florida’s Buster Bishop in the 1960s and 1970s – has coached three U.S. Amateur medalists.

Six Yellow Jackets in Heppler’s tenure have represented the United States in the Walker Cup (the prestigious biennial amateur team competition pitting the U.S. vs. Great Britain and Ireland) and 11 Jackets have competed in the Palmer Cup (an annual team competition between the U.S. and the rest of the world). Heppler has been chosen to coach the U.S. Palmer Cup team twice (2003 and 2015).

An astounding 25 Yellow Jackets have earned all-America honors a total of 57 times under Heppler’s tutelage, and he’s sent 15 players on to the PGA tour and 12 others to affiliated professional golf circuits. Ten of his players have competed in professional golf major championships a total of 20 times, most recently Tai in the 2025 Masters and U.S. Open.

However, for all of the success on the course, perhaps Heppler’s most notable accomplishment as head coach is the academic achievements of his teams. His teams have had a perfect NCAA Academic Progress Rate score of 1,000 every year since the metric was introduced in 2003 and every senior that has been on his roster has graduated. Twenty-eight of his players have been named all-America scholars by the Golf Coaches Association of America a total of 53 times and five – Matteson (2003), Roberto Castro (2007), James White (2012), Anders Albertson (2015) and Lamprecht (2024) – won the Byron Nelson Award, which is given annually to college golf’s top senior scholar-athlete. Tech’s five Byron Nelson Award winners are the most from any program in the 24-year history of the award (Northwestern and Pepperdine have had two honorees each).

Additionally, two Yellow Jackets – Molder (2002) and Castro (2008) – received the NCAA’s prestigious Today’s Top VIII award, an honor given to only eight student-athletes across all sports each year, which recognizes those who excel in their sport and in the classroom, and exhibit high character, leadership and service to others. They remain the only two men’s golfers to win the award since its inception in 1995.

Heppler has also exceled in building relationships with donors to Georgia Tech golf. His efforts have been instrumental in the construction of Georgia Tech’s Noonan Golf Facility, a 15-acre complex on Tech’s midtown Atlanta campus that opened in 2017 and gives the Yellow Jackets one of the finest practice facilities in all of college golf, as well as building an endowment that funds the program’s entire scholarship program. Under Heppler’s leadership, Tech golf has also secured team memberships at two of Georgia’s finest golf clubs – the Golf Club of Georgia and East Lake Golf Club.

“It’s impossible to put into words everything that Coach Heppler has meant to Georgia Tech and college golf,” Georgia Tech vice president and director of athletics Ryan Alpert said. “He’s built Georgia Tech golf into one of the nation’s premier programs, while developing some of golf’s premier players but, more importantly, developing men that have gone on to be successful in all walks of life. We couldn’t be more grateful for Coach Heppler’s contributions to Georgia Tech and are excited to celebrate him through his final season on The Flats.”

A St. George, Utah native, Heppler came to Georgia Tech in 1995 following four years as an assistant coach at Oklahoma State (1991-95), two years as an assistant at UNLV (1989-91) and one season as the head men’s and women’s golf coach at Amherst College (1987).

He played one year of golf at Dixie Junior College in St. George before embarking on a two-year mission to South Africa. After his return to the United States, he graduated from Dixie and transferred to BYU, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1985. He went on to become a certified public accountant and spent one year at an accounting firm in Salt Lake City before beginning his journey as a golf coach. He also holds a master’s degree in sport management from Massachusetts (1988).

Heppler is a member of the Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame (inducted in 2013) and the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame (inducted in 2022). In 2018, he was named an honorary alumnus of Georgia Tech.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT BRUCE HEPPLER:

“This is the retirement of one of the greatest leaders college sports has ever known. It’s a day of sadness and also tremendous celebration. The way that Coach Heppler ran his program at Georgia Tech for 30 years is something for every leader and coach to aspire to be like. He built a golf program that will go down in the history books of success, but it was the way he did it that truly distinguishes him from the rest. The winning he did on the course, and even the pressure to maintain the excellence, never took away from his unwavering commitment to the betterment of each you man’s life that came into his program. And that was the magic. By leading from the front, operating with the highest integrity and coaching with his caring heart, we as his players were able to experience a culture that made us better as young men, teammates, students and golfers. It was the whole person that Bruce coached and cared about, not just how to shoot the lowest scores.

“As we say goodbye to this legend of a coach, one who does not boast, who is not loud and does not need the spotlight, we as his players cannot help but be full of gratitude. Each of our lives are better because of the experience we had being a part of a program curated by a great man named Bruce Heppler.”
– Anders Albertson (Georgia Tech golf – 2011-15)

“I could not have ended up at a better place for me than Georgia Tech, or with a better coach for me than Bruce Heppler. It’s hard to believe that a program can be so good for so long, and the biggest part of that success has been Bruce Heppler.”
– Matt Kuchar (Georgia Tech golf – 1996-2000)

“Coach Heppler is a very unique coach in college golf. So many coaches in the competitive arena focus on trying to perfect their athletes on the course. Coach Heppler had a really unique attribute to him that he made all his players better people, as well as better athletes. He wanted to line us up for success and give us a jumpstart to life after college, whether that’s on the golf course or in the professional world outside of golf. Over his 30-year career at Tech, there’s so many different people that have gone on to success in so many different areas, not just the golf course.

“On the course, the amount of gold medals and NCAA trophies that Georgia Tech has is something that very few other places can claim, and it’s all because of his leadership. He has a really interesting method of coaching. He always had a lot of information and used it to prepare us, but he never made it feel like he was doing the coaching. He made his players feel like they were doing it themselves. There’s a saying that he lives by when it comes to coaching – ‘when a student leaves a mentor’s purview, a great mentor will have made the student feel like they learned everything them self.’ Coach Heppler is that silent leader, helping guys out without them even knowing it. He’s a little quirky in his ways, but that’s why we love him so much and why he’s such a hero to Georgia Tech athletics in general. He truly is amazing and I loved all four years playing for him. He’s without a doubt the reason I came to Georgia Tech.”
– Christo Lamprecht (Georgia Tech golf – 2020-24)

“Coach Heppler was a great coach and mentor to us individually, but more importantly, he created a culture at Georgia Tech that is respected everywhere. No one has had more success on and off the course over the last 30-plus years, and we’re all grateful to have been able to play for him.”
– Bryce Molder (Georgia Tech golf – 1998-2001)

Full Steam Ahead

Full Steam Ahead is a $500 million fundraising initiative to achieve Georgia Tech athletics’ goal of competing for championships at the highest level in the next era of intercollegiate athletics. The initiative will fund transformative projects for Tech athletics, including renovations of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (the historic home of Georgia Tech football), the Zelnak Basketball Center (the practice and training facility for Tech basketball) and O’Keefe Gymnasium (the venerable home of Yellow Jackets volleyball), as well as additional projects and initiatives to further advance Georgia Tech athletics through program wide-operational support. All members of the Georgia Tech community are invited to visit atfund.org/FullSteamAhead for full details and renderings of the renovation projects, as well as to learn about opportunities to contribute online.

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