TUCSON, Ariz. - After a historic season that culminated with Arizona men's golf advancing to the semifinals of match play for the first time in program history at the NCAA Championship last week, head coach Jim Anderson has been named the 2026 Division I Golf Pride Grips West Region Coach of the Year by the Golf Coaches Association of America.
"I am honored to receive this award, but this is a true team effort that leads to recognition like this," said Anderson. "The success that we had this season is due in large part to the incredible young men on the team as well as assistant coach Matt Walton, student assistant coach Jackson Norwich and the support of our administration. Our guys were ready when the opportunity presented itself in the postseason as a result of the process throughout the season."
It is the first region coach of the year honor for Anderson, who just completed his 14th season leading the Wildcats. Anderson was named Pac-12 Coach of the Year in 2021 and has led the Wildcats to eight consecutive appearances in an NCAA regional, advancing to the NCAA Championship in three of the last five seasons.
The 2025-26 season saw Anderson and the Wildcats pickup three team wins – The Copper Cup, The N.I.T. and the NCAA Marana Regional – and was one of the top 10 teams in the country during the Spring portion of the season. The postseason run for the Wildcats began with a second-place finish at the Big 12 Championships and then carried over to the Marana Regional, where the score of 49-under par was one shy of the all-time program record. Then at the NCAA Championship, Arizona finished sixth in the stroke play portion of the tournament and then defeated Vanderbilt in the quarterfinals before a narrow loss to UCLA in the semifinals to finished tied for third place, the program's best NCAA finish since 2004. For the entire season, Arizona finished ranked No. 11 in the Clippd by Scoreboard rankings.
Individually, Filip Jakubcik was named a First Team All-American, a first for a Wildcat since 2004, and was also a First Team All-Big 12 honoree while Zach Pollo and William Wistrand earned Second Team All-Big 12 honors.
Andereson joins former Arizona head coach Rick LaRose as the only two coaches in program history to receive a coach of the year award at the district, regional or national level. LaRose was named national coach of the year in 1992 when the Wildcats won the national championship and was district coach of the year in 1988, 2000 and 2004.
