'Winning this tournament doesn’t get old': Illini Coach Mike Small Wins 2020 Illinois PGA For 13th Time

Illinois men’s golf coach Mike Small won the most prestigious in-state event for golfing professionals for a 13th time.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Make it now a baker’s dozen of Illinois PGA Championships for Mike Small.

The University of Illinois men’s golf coach won the most prestigious in-state event for golfing professionals for a 13th time by completing the 54-hole tournament at 13-under-par. Small, 54, held off Frank Hohenadel and Andy Mickelson, both representing Mistwood Golf Club in Romeoville, to win the event by four shots.

“Winning this tournament doesn’t get old and it doesn’t get easier,” Small said. “It’s been awhile since I won so it feels good to contend. I always want to be in contention, so it felt good this week. The course was hard today. I hung in there. I didn’t play great but scored well. I didn’t hit it well, but I competed and putted really well today.”

Small, an Illinois Golf Hall of Fame inductee in October 2013, followed up a second-round 63 (which tied the course record at Course One of Medinah Country Club) with a final round 68 Wednesday to take home the event he’d previously won in 2001, 2003-10, 2013-14 and 2016. Small has now won the event twice at Medinah.

“I think that’s always a nice thing to win at great facilities like Medinah,” Small said. “I think it’s great that cubs like Medinah and Olympia Fields host events like this."     

Similarly to his fast start Tuesday in the second round, Small opened birdie-birdie in his first two holes of the final round at Medinah and secured the championship over his play in the final 10 holes. While being tied at 11-under-par with Mickelson heading to the ninth tee, Small finished those final 10 holes at 2-under-par while Mickelson stumbled with bogeys on No. 9, No. 13 and No. 14 to result in a tie for second place. Small was one of only four players to finish their final round with an under-par score. 

Small was the only player in the 156-player field to finish the tournament double-digits under par and was the only player to have three rounds in the 60s. 

Illinois men's golf coach Mike Small followed up a second-round 63 with a final round 68 on Wednesday to take home the Illinois PGA Championship, an event Small had previously won in 2001, 2003-10, 2013-14 and 2018 :: Photo provided by Nick Novelli/Illinois PGA

Only six players finished the event under par on a challenging course that has hosted five major championships including three U.S. Opens (1949, 1975, 1990) and two PGA Championships (1999, 2006), as well as the Ryder Cup in 2012.

"I talk to my team (at Illinois) about repetition and consistency and it shows you’re doing something right and that you’re staying in the moment and you don’t reflect so much in the past," Small said. "I try to teach my guys about being in the present and I probably haven’t done a good job of that the past couple of years but today I did. If you think about all the ones you’ve won and think about all the stuff you’ve done they may get harder and you may get content. And I don’t want to do that. I look at them all differently. The older you get you probably get more nostalgic and you might think about it but I don’t try to do that."

Small, who is entering his 20th season as the head coach of the Illini program, is arguably the most successful head coach in Illinois athletics since taking the job in 2000. He was named the NCAA coach of the year in 2015 and has guided the Illini to Big Ten Championship titles in 10 of the last 11 seasons and coached two NCAA individual champions in that span (PGA Tour players Scott Langley and Thomas Pieters in 2010 and 2012).

Under Small’s direction, the Illini have advanced to the NCAA Championships in each of the last 12 seasons and in 14 of Small’s 19 seasons. The Illini have won five NCAA Regional titles, including four consecutive NCAA Regional Championships from 2013-2016, becoming one of just two schools in NCAA history to do so, and have finished among the top five teams in the nation in five of the last seven seasons, highlighted by an NCAA runner-up finish in 2013. Since the start of the 2014-15 season, Small’s Illini have been a consistent force among the top 25 in the Golfweek Bushnell Coaches Poll and own the longest streak ranked in the top spot.

Small has been named Big Ten Coach of the Year a conference-record 11 times in his career (2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2002) and has also been named Midwest Regional Coach of the Year nine times in his career (2019, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2003). Under his direction, Illinois athletes have won 26 All-America honors and 50 All-Big Ten accolades.

Small has continued his professional career while coaching, most recently making his debut on the PGA Champions Tour. Since 2000, he is a three-time PGA of America National Champion, a three-time PGA Professional National Player of the Year, a 12-time IPGA Champion, four-time Illinois Open Champion and he has participated in 13 major championships. Small has made the cut in 15 of 34 PGA TOUR events since he began coaching at Illinois, and has appeared in several PGA TOUR Champions events, earning three top 10 finishes. He was named the 2017 OMEGA Senior PGA Professional Player of the Year as well.