Washington Golf

When Mary Lou Mulflur decided to return to her alma mater as the Washington women’s golf coach in 1983, she thought, maybe, she could stick with it as long as her college coach, Edean Ihlanfeldt.

Mulflur’s mentor started the Huskies’ program. She spent seven years at the helm.

“I don’t know if I can do it that long,” Mulflur thought at the time.

Coaching a sport like golf at a university, at that time, was a “labor of love.” It wasn’t about money. It was about the bonds built through long days on the golf course.

As an athlete, Mulflur earned four letters with the Huskies. It was her time competing for Washington and learning from Ihlanfeldt that convinced Mulflur to coach.

“I did it because I had gotten so much out of my experience here,” said Mulflur, who wanted to give back to the program.

More than three decades later, Mulflur is still leading the Huskies, carrying on the tradition Ihlanfeldt started.

For the Washington women’s golf program, success revolves around relationships.

It started with Ihlanfeldt. It endures through Mulflur.

“The more I coach, the longer I do this, it’s really what this is about,” Mulflur said. “You don’t coach golf, you coach people.”

It is that mentality that aided the development of players like Nancy McDaniel, now the coach at Cal, and Kelli Kamimura, the Washington State coach.

“I became part of something much bigger than myself and even the team, a part of a wonderful athletic program,” McDaniel said. “Mary Lou has also mentored me and many other coaches and helped me secure my first job as a fellow Pac-12 coach. She is always there for us and she continues to move women's collegiate golf in the right direction and to the next level.”

Kamimura added, “She just does an amazing job of really instilling a lot of pride in her players about the program, where it’s been, where it is, a past, present and future kind of a thing.”

So, what is it about Mulflur’s coaching style that fosters the kind of atmosphere that lends itself to strong long-term relationships?

As Mulflur works toward her fourth decade with the program, she has found success by investing more time in people than golf.

Well, as far as the coach is concerned, there is no secret to her success. 

She recruits athletes who are built the same way, who have the right makeup to fit in with the overall team dynamic. She has an assistant coach in Andrea VanderLende, who relates well with the student-athletes in the program. And, more than anything else, Mulflur listens.

In fact, earlier this year, a reporter asked to spend a day at one of Washington’s practices to gather some insight into Mulflur’s coaching style.

“You don’t really say a lot, do you?” the reporter asked at the end of the day. 
 
“In a perfect world, you don’t have to say a lot,” Mulflur said. “It’s what you say to them and, more importantly, what you say back.”

Mulflur’s coaching style isn’t designed to teach technical precision. She gives her golfers the freedom to develop in a way that best suits their game.

“If I had been with a coach who had been little more controlling, I probably wouldn’t have succeeded,” said Paige Mackenzie, who competes on the LPGA Tour, in addition to working as a studio analyst for the Golf Channel. “She gave me the room to learn my own way and I think that probably takes a little bit of restraint on her part.

“She allowed me to make my own mistakes and figure out what worked for me. I needed that. That, to me, is the sign of a great coach. She gave me the tools to succeed, but allowed me to fail.”

For Mulflur, the 2015 spring season was a testament to relationship-based coaching, the idea that communication and belief really make a difference.

“This year was extraordinary,” she said. “You’ll probably never see another year in college golf, maybe not even college sports, where you take away 40 percent of your starters mid-year and you still perform well.”

The Huskies lost two members of the team – SooBin Kim and Jing Yan – to the LPGA Tour, but still found a way to finish tied for fifth in the country. 

“It was all about the relationship they have with each other and the belief we had in them,” Mulflur said. “We didn’t teach them how to hit a flop shot better, it wasn’t about that, it was about this little group we had that was in our bubble and you don’t get to come in here.”

Mulflur’s relationship-based philosophy has been handed down to both McDaniel and Kamimura, who are sharing the idea within their own programs.

“She is just such a supportive coach,” Kamimura said. “She has instilled that in me where I want to support my players, not only in what they’re doing on the golf course, but what they’re doing in life.”

When McDaniel and Kamimura were competing at Washington, Mulflur knew they had talent, but it was their drive to be great that fueled their success.

“This year was extraordinary. You’ll probably never see another year in college golf, maybe not even college sports, where you take away 40 percent of your starters mid-year and you still perform well.”

“The one thing I know about both of them is they were extremely hard workers, so they’re not going to put up with players who don’t work hard,” Mulflur said. “Both of those kids were the first one to practice, the last one to leave.

“Every time I see them I just have so much pride. I’m just so proud of them for what they’ve done, because they’ve both accomplished a lot.”

Whether it is Mulflur talking about the athletes she has coached or former players talking about what they learned during their time at Washington, there is pride in the program.

“I take a lot of pride in it,” Mackenzie said. “I don’t take a little bit. I take a lot.”

In her role with the Golf Channel, Mackenzie was at The Concession Golf Club for the NCAA Championships. It was an opportunity for the past to intersect with the program’s present.

“I was so pumped to be able to be at The Concession Golf Club while they were at nationals,” Mackenzie said. “I follow the program closely, but I don’t know a lot of the girls, because I don’t get back to Washington often, but it doesn’t matter. We all wear purple and gold.”

That is the legacy Mulflur has stamped on the program. As she works toward her fourth decade with the program, she has found success by investing more time in people than golf.