LPGA Pro and D1 All-American Now Leading Oakland Women Golfers
By David Bassett
Oakland University’s women’s golf team, gearing up for a repeat of last year’s Horizon League championship win and another trip to the NCAA regionals, has a new leader with an exceptional pedigree.
Sarah Burnham, a 3-time All-American and 2-time Big Ten Player of the year at Michigan State, got the Golden Grizzlies women off to a fast start last fall with two wins and two second-place finishes in four matches. Burnham was hired by OU in July, 2022 after she spent three years on the LPGA tour where she played in 41 tournaments, notching two top-10 finishes.
Before graduating from MSU in 2019, Burnham set the women’s single-season and 4-year scoring average records of 70.68 and 72.92, respectively. She shot the most career rounds in the 60s (19) and set the Big 10 Championship lowest-ever score for a single round (63, nine under par). During her second season on the LPGA tour, she returned to Michigan to win the 2020 Michigan PGA Women’s Open by 10 shots.
How important to Sarah’s potential college coaching success is her pedigree as an elite amateur and an LPGA touring pro?
Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll, Sarah’s coach at MSU, thinks it could make a tremendous difference. She said that Burnham is the hardest working player she has coached in her 27-year career, and that strong worth ethic is sure to translate into coaching success.
“Sarah has a powerful, uncommon ability to focus on what needs to improve and to keep grinding away at it until it gets better,” Slobodnik-Stoll said. “Players will sense that dedication and tenacity quickly. They’ll see that she not only understands what it takes to be successful, but that she has followed through and actually done it.
“Maybe most important, Sarah has no visible ego. Nothing is all about her. I’m confident that her players will respect her and work hard.”
Slobodnik-Stoll also cited Burnham’s making the MSU Dean’s List four straight years despite having dyslexia.
“College wasn’t easy for Sarah; she has worked awfully hard for everything she’s achieved, on the course and in the classroom,” she added.
Burnham is the fourth D1 women’s head coach coming from the MSU program: Caroline Powers-Ellis recently took over at Notre Dame, Emily Glaser is at Florida and Aimee Neff at North Carolina are the three others.
Nick Pumford, Oakland U’s director of men’s and women’s golf teams, also points to Burnham’s commitment to classroom and on-course success as a key to being hired to replace Alyssa Gaudio-Guss, who was named 2021-22 Horizon League coach of the year before deciding to take a break from coaching.
“The margins on the LPGA tour are so small, a quarter stroke here and a tenth of a stroke there. The technical difficulty and mental pressure to not only play within those margins, but actually improve across 30 or 35 professional events a year, is enormous. Sarah has been there and done that,” Pumford said.
He spoke of Burnham’s mastery of the data-driven green-reading system AimPointÆ as another example of Burnham’s high-level experience helping her be a better coach.
AimPointÆ has been used extensively on the world’s pro tours for more than a decade by players, coaches and caddies. Less common is its use in college and junior golf. While it isn’t difficult to learn the basics of AimPointÆ, Pumford says becoming highly proficient with it in pressure-packed elite amateur and professional tournaments is uncommon.
As the 2023 spring season gets underway, Burnham said she and her team are committed to repeating as Horizon League champs and making a better showing at the NCAA regional tournament. In 2022, the Golden Grizzlies women’s team placed 12th out of 12 teams, 80 strokes behind winner San Jose State.
“I know we can do better than that just by learning to manage pressure better during the season, putting ourselves in difficult situations in practice and using stress management tools in tournaments to remain calm and confident,” Burnham said.
Burnham, a native of Minnesota, also mentioned her success with the Navy SEALs’ “4/4/4” calming technique: breathe in for four seconds, hold that breath for four seconds, and slowly exhale for four seconds.
“Relaxed players play better than tense players,” Burnham said.
She should know.
