Since joining the program as assistant coach in September of 2018, Justin Bubser has helped Arizona Women’s Golf continue solidifying its place among the nation’s best programs with hallmark runs to the NCAA Championships.
The story of the 2022-23 season was Arizona playing its best golf at the end of the season that began with the young team’s stellar play at the Pac-12 Championships as the Wildcats finished in fourth place. Their momentum carried into the NCAA Raleigh Regional where Arizona won its sixth NCAA Regional Championship in program history and its first since 2010. Freshman Julia Misemer fired back-to-back rounds of 68 to end the week tied in second place. The runner-up finish by Misemer marked the best performance by a Wildcat at NCAA Regionals since Alison Walshe won 2008 UC Davis Regional. The Wildcats punched their ticket to the NCAA Championships for the fourth time in five years with Bubser on staff after winning in Raleigh. Arizona would advance to the round of 15 teams in Scottsdale before finishing the season in a tie for ninth with freshman Nena Wongthanavimok carding a historic run at the NCAA Championships. Wongthanavimok finished tied for seventh after shooting 6-under for the week. She became the third Arizona freshman in the last 20 years to post a top-10 finish at the NCAA Championships, joining Haley Moore (2016) and Erica Blasberg (2003).
The 2021-22 season saw Bubser help oversee a Wildcat team that qualified for NCAA Regionals for a 29
th consecutive season despite losing the All-American sister tandem of Yu-Sang and Vivian Hou to the professional ranks in December. The youthful roster came within strokes of advancing from the NCAA Albuquerque Regional to reach the NCAA Championships for what would have been a fourth consecutive season. Freshman Carolina Melgrati earned WGCA Honorable Mention All-American and Pac-12 All-Conference Team selections in a banner collegiate debut season that also included participation in the prestigious Augusta National Women’s Amateur (ANWA).
Bubser helped guide the Wildcats to the semifinals of match play of the 2021 NCAA Championships for a second consecutive season as assistant coach. Yu-Sang Hou earned a spot on the All-Pac-12 Team with Therese Warner received honorable mention.
Hou would go on to earn Second Team All-America honors from the WGCA in each of Bubser’s first three seasons with the program while Vivian Hou was the WGCA National Freshman of the Year and First Team All-American in 2020.
Before Arizona, Bubser was the Head Golf Professional at Omni Tucson National. In his role, Bubser oversaw over 150 corporate, member, and outside golf events a year including the PGA Tour Champions Cologuard Classic and the University of Arizona’s National Invitational Tournament.
Bubser was first an assistant golf professional at Omni Tucson National, where he instructed players of all levels from juniors to seniors as well as worked his way through the Professional Golfers Associations PGM program to attain his Class A membership. In 2007, Bubser was a member of the Gateway, Adams and Pepsi tours. He played professionally for 14 months.
Bubser began his career in the golf business as an assistant golf professional at Alto Lakes Golf & Country Club in Ruidoso, N.M.. While at Alto, Bubser honed his skills as an instructor and as a golf professional, instructing over 100 private and group lessons as well as competing in the National Assistants Championship in Port St Lucie, Fla., in 2005.
A native of Carlsbad, N.M., Bubser was the number one player for the Western New Mexico University golf team during the 2003-04 seasons. At Western New Mexico, he completed his bachelor’s in business administration with a focus in Business Management in 2004. Previously he attended New Mexico Junior College for two years, where his team finished third in the NJCAA Championships. While at NMJC he completed his general education requirements and received an associate of arts degree.
Bubser graduated from Carlsbad High School in 1999, where he was the second player in history to letter five years starting in the eighth grade. There, he helped the Carlsbad Cavemen win two state championships in 1996 and 1998.
An avid golfer himself since the age of seven, Bubser has always had a passion for coaching. He has been involved with Ironwood Ridge High School golf, the First Tee of Tucson, the Southern AZ PGA Junior league and LPGA Girls Golf of Tucson.
