Nicknames helpful to UGA golfers’ success

Published at The Athens Banner-Herald

One fall Saturday, University of Georgia associate head golf coach Jim Douglas was observing practice. Then-UGA golfer Keith Mitchell was whining about having to practice. There was a football game that day and he wanted to go tailgating.

It got so bad that Douglas called him out, saying that he was whining like a kitten who needed his saucer of milk. Thus the nickname “Saucer” was born.

The UGA golf team, which finished its regular season Saturday at the Mason Rudolph Championship in Franklin, Tenn., has a storied history with nicknames. The nicknames, the players and coaches say, help their camaraderie on and off the course.

In most instances Douglas is the mastermind behind them.

“It creates an identity in a way that everyone feels like they fit in,” said Douglas, who began as an assistant coach at Georgia in 1997 under current head coach Chris Haack.

Jack Larkin Jr., a junior, is nicknamed “Neck” because of his large neck. He remembers feeling a little nervous while playing in one of his first tournaments for UGA. Douglas approached him around the seventh hole and quipped: ”’Sup Neck? How’re you doing?”

It caught Larkin off guard but immediately eased the pressure for the rest of the tournament.

“This is nice,” Larkin said he thought to himself. “This is relaxing. I feel a lot more comfortable right now, just kind of hanging out. This is how we go about our practice every day, and [it] almost helps simulate what we normally do on a daily basis.”

Douglas uses the nicknames as a way to build up players and further solidify their place on the team.

“If you really want to get somebody’s attention, they know who it is,” said Douglas. “And you’re not embarrassing them by calling their name out in front of everybody.”

Both coaches themselves have nicknames. Haack has gone by Haacker for decades and Douglas has gone from Jimbo to Dougie Fresh to now simply Doug.

It started back in 1998. Ryuji Imada joined the team and people had trouble pronouncing his name. Eventually, Douglas decided he needed a new name. Imada, in typical late 90′s fashion, would use gel and spike his hair up. That led to the nickname “Spike.”

“Leave it up to Douglas to come up with these names,” said Zach Healy, a senior who goes by “Trapper” due to his affinity for trap music. “He’s an interesting character and he’ll come up with something and have a story behind it.”

The nicknames give UGA golfers an informal way to address each other and that — mixed with the players knowing the back stories behind the names — creates a bond.

Douglas is always looking for new opportunities to assign nicknames to players.

“The common denominator is usually the guys don’t like it,” said Douglas. ”(They’ll say) ‘No you can’t call me that, that can’t be my nickname,’ and as soon as that happens, that’s when it sticks.”

The smart players learn quickly to embrace the name and own it — most notably current PGA Tour player Lee McCoy.

McCoy played for Georgia from 2012-16 and is a freckle-faced redhead who bears a striking resemblance to The Shermanator from the film American Pie. Douglas made note of it and started calling him “Sherm.” It stuck.

“I think his family actually calls themselves ‘The Sherms’ now,” said Douglas.

University of Oklahoma head coach Ryan Hybl was a former player under Haack and Douglas, and his team has a good relationship with Georgia. Even his players will call the UGA coaches and players by their nicknames.

“It’s a really small community,” Hybl said of college golfers. “They get to know each other very well on a different level than most other sports.”

At this point, many UGA players find it strange when they are called by their actual names.

“I seriously cannot remember the last time someone called me Zach,” said Healy. “It’s really weird.”

As Georgia’s golfers head into the postseason, hoping to win their first Southeastern Conference championship since 2010, Douglas will be encouraging them with nicknames destined to become part of the UGA golf team’s lore.

“One of the greatest fraternities to be in if you’re a golfer,” Douglas said, “is to be in the UGA golf fraternity.”

The Grady Sports Bureau is part of the sports media program at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *