Garrett Runion Season 2025-26
Updated on July 31, 2025
Arnold Palmer Cup Co-Head Coach (USA – 2024)
SEC Coach of the Year — 2022, 2023
Golf Pride WGCA Central Regional Coach of the Year — 2022
Finalist Jackie Steinmann WGCA National Coach of the Year – 2022, 2024, 2025
Women’s NCAA Championship Appearances — 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
Women’s NCAA Match Play Appearance — 2024
SEC Championship — 2022
Louisiana Women’s Coach of the Year – 2020, 2021, 2022, 2024
Jan Strickland Award Finalist – 2016, 2017, 2018
Dave Williams Award – NCAA Division II National Men’s Coach of the Year – 2012
Eaton Golf Pride South Region Coach of the Year – 2012
Sunshine State Conference Men’s Coach of the Year – 2012
LSU WOMEN’S HEAD COACH (2018-present)
Garrett Runion, who has been a part of two national championships during his collegiate coaching career, is entering his eighth season as the LSU women’s golf head coach. Runion became the fourth women’s golf head coach in LSU history on June 8, 2018.
Runion has led the Tigers through a seven-year period of national prominence thanks to five-year players Ingrid Lindblad and Latanna Stone and four-year player Carla Tejedo. The three players posted the most team wins of any players in LSU history, captured the first SEC Championship for LSU in 30 years and became the fourth, fifth and sixth players for LSU to appear in four NCAA Championships.
The three helped LSU to national prominence including multiple appearances in events like the Curtis Cup, the Arnold Palmer Cup, the Augusta Women’s National Amateur and tournaments like the United States Amateur and the United States Women’s Open.
But despite the trio leaving the program, Runion and assistant Alexis Rather showed that the LSU women’s golf program was not a flash in the pan as they again advanced to match play in the SEC Championship, advanced through an NCAA Regional and made the NCAA Championships for a school record fifth straight year in 2025.
The last three years saw the emergence of Indiana transfer Aine Donegan of Ireland, who has been a part of the last three teams to make NCAA championship appearances. She represented Ireland in several European events, teed it up through qualifying in the two United States Women’s Opens and helped GB&I win the 2024 Curtis Cup and the 2025 Vagliano Cup.
The team in 2025 also saw the emergence of freshmen Rocio Tejedo and Josefin Widal, the steady play of three-year lettermen Taylor Riley and the reemergence of senior Elsa Svensson.
Highlighting the season was a second win in three years in the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate as LSU won the famed guitar trophy in a tie for first place, rallying in the final holes to get Runion’s 15th win as the LSU head coach.
LSU would finish 12th in the NCAA Scoreboard rankings.
In 2023-24, the Tigers won three times, finishing the year ranked No. 3 in the official performance rankings.
Also in 2023-24, LSU for the first time in school history advanced to match play in the NCAA Championships. Also, LSU finished in a tie for first in the 72-hole match play qualifying, setting a school record for four-round stroke total with a 2-over par 1,154.
The group helped Runion and the Tigers win an NCAA Regional outright for the first time in LSU women’s team history. The Tigers also completed back-to-back the two lowest stroke averages in school history (285.24 in 2023-24 and 286.65 in 2022-23). In fact, the top four-season stroke averages have come in the Runion era.
For the second straight year he was named SEC Coach of the Year in 2023 after leading the Tigers to four wins, a semifinal spot in the SEC Match Play and advancement to the NCAA Women’s Golf Championship.
The Tigers won their 50th team event in their history during the 2022-23 season, highlighted by the nationally-televised Darius Rucker Intercollegiate in the spring. The team finished No. 3 in the final 2022-23 WGCA Mizuno Coaches Poll. One of the highlights of the year came in the NCAA Regional at PGA National in Florida, rallying from eight shots down in the final nine holes to finish in a qualifying spot.
That SEC championship in 2022 at Greystone in Birmingham was one that LSU had been looking for since winning in Baton Rouge back in 1992. LSU finished second in the team qualifying, finishing 54 holes at 2-over 866 and then in match play, defeated Vanderbilt, 4-1; Alabama, 3-1-1; and, then took the championship match over Florida, 3-0-2.
LSU again showed itself on national television, winning the inaugural Jackson T. Stephens Cup in Arkansas, leading the field through qualifying and then defeating South Carolina in the championship match.
The 2020-21 season marked the milestone return of LSU to the NCAA Championships in Scottsdale and LSU finished ninth, just one shot out of the match play advancement after 72 holes. LSU would finish fifth in the final Golfstat team rankings and fourth in the WGCA poll.
The 2019-20 season would have probably been the start of the run for LSU women’s golf if the pandemic had not halted the season in March 2020. But it was when the Runion led Tigers won their first team titles under his leadership, winning three regular season tournaments and finishing in the top three in six-of-seven events before the season ended.
Runion led the team to an almost 10-stroke improvement in team average from 298.28 in 2018-19 to 288.71 in 2019-20. The team finished 12th in the national rankings.
In his first season at the helm, the 2018-19 season, Runion returned the Tigers to the NCAA postseason as LSU competed in the NCAA postseason in the East Lansing Regional.
LSU, during Runion’s time as head coach, has had nine All-Americans and 10 SEC selections. Ingrid Lindblad won in 2024 the WGCA Player of the Year award, the ANNIKA Award and the Inkster Award.
LSU MEN’S ASSISTANT COACH (2012-18)
Runion spent six seasons as the LSU men’s golf assistant coach and in April 2018 was named a finalist for the Jan Strickland Outstanding Assistant Coach Award for the third year in a row. A 2008 LSU graduate and three-year letter winner for the Tigers, Runion was instrumental in the LSU men’s team’s return to national prominence since joining then Coach Chuck Winstead’s men’s staff prior to the 2012-13 season.
The LSU men’s team finished in the Top 10 at the men’s NCAA National Championships in four consecutive seasons from 2013-17 and had four former and current Tigers qualify for the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. Tiger Luis Gagne received low amateur honors at that event.
The 2014-15 season was one for the ages in the history of LSU men’s golf as the Tigers staked their claim as the premier program in college golf with a 4-1 win over USC to win the NCAA national title. From 2012-18, 12 Tigers earned XX All-America honors and 14 were named All-Southeastern Conference.
Runion’s first season back in Baton Rouge proved to be a strong campaign for the Tigers as they qualified for the 2013 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships. The Tigers reached the semifinals of match play for the first time in 2014 and finished the job in 2015 with the national crown. It was the program’s fifth national championship all-time and the first in 60 years. LSU had previously won the national title in 1940, 1942, 1947 and 1955.
The Tigers were also crowned SEC Champions for the first time in 28 years and the 16th time in their history when they scored a three-stroke victory over Vanderbilt and South Carolina at the 2015 SEC Championships.
In 2016 LSU advanced to the quarterfinals of NCAA match play for the third season in a row. LSU just missed a fourth consecutive appearance in 2017 with a 9th place finish.
During the 2016-17 campaign, Runion mentored then-sophomores Sam Burns and Gagne as they wrote their chapters in the LSU history book. The team won a school-record six tournament titles, including the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional and Burns became the first Tiger to earn the NCAA Division I Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year Award from the Golf Coaches Association of America.
While with the LSU men’s program, he served as the Assistant Coach Representative for NCAA Division I on the National Golf Coaches Association of America’s National Advisory Board.
NOVA SOUTHEASTERN HEAD COACH (2010-12)
Runion returned to LSU after guiding the Sharks of Nova Southeastern to the NCAA Division II national championship in his one and only season as head coach in 2011-12. The run to the national title highlighted a historic season that saw Runion receive the Dave Williams Award as the NCAA Division II National Coach of the Year, as well as earning Sunshine State Conference Coach of the Year and Eaton Golf Pride South Region Coach of the Year honors.
The Sharks also earned the team’s second SSC title in his tenure on staff. He served as the program’s assistant head coach during the 2010-11 season as Nova Southeastern captured the SSC titles in a strong 2010-11 campaign.
PERSONAL
A native of Orlando, Florida, Runion called Baton Rouge and LSU home in four seasons from 2003-08. A four-time member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll and three-time SEC Community Service Team selection, Runion graduated from LSU in the May 2008 with his Bachelor of Arts & Science degree in general studies.
Runion and his wife, Meghan, have one son, Reid, aka “Rocket”, and daughters, Riley and Raegan Lee.