Georgia Tech’s run of Atlantic Coast Conference championships and NCAA Championships performances – 14 ACC titles, 19 trips to the NCAA Championship finals and four national runner-up finishes – are unprecedented for any sports program in school history, while the Yellow Jackets have won 72 tournaments in his 29 years.
Bruce Heppler, the 10th-longest tenured head coach in Division I at 29 years, has guided the Yellow Jackets to an NCAA regional every year since 1998 (no NCAA championships were held in spring of 2020), while 19 of those teams advanced to the NCAA Finals. Twelve of those teams have finished in the top eight, with five of those teams reaching match play since that format was introduced in 2009. In 2023, the Yellow Jackets reached the finals of match play at the NCAA Championship for the first time, where they fell to Florida, 3-1, for the program’s fifth all-time runner-up finish.
Prior to that, three Tech teams finished as national runner-up under the former 72-hole stroke-play format. During his tenure, Tech has won or shared 14 Atlantic Coast Conference titles. Only two ACC coaches have led their teams to more ACC titles than has Heppler. With victories in the last four years by Andy Ogletree (2019) and Tyler Strafaci (2020), as well as Matt Kuchar in 1997, three of his players have won the coveted United States Amateur Championship, which is tied for the most by any college coach.
He has been named ACC Coach of the Year 10 times, most recently in 2019, more than any ACC coach in conference history. He also is a member of the Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame in October of 2022.
Since 2000, Tech has finished outside the top 10 in both polls only four times.
Name: Bruce Heppler | Birthdate: March 27, 1960 in St. George, Utah
Family: Wife Traci, children Zach and Moriah | Joined Tech Staff: June 27, 1995
Education: Master’s degree in sport management from Massachusetts in 1988; Bachelor’s degree in accounting from Brigham Young in 1985; Associate degree in arts and sciences from Dixie Junior College in 1982.
Playing Experience: Lettered at Dixie Junior College (1979).
Coaching Experience: Head coach at Georgia Tech (1995-present), Assistant men’s and women’s coach at Oklahoma State (1991-95), Assistant men’s coach at UNLV (1989-91), Head men’s and women’s coach at Amherst College (1987), USA Palmer Cup coach (2003, 2015)
Honors/Organizations: GCAA National Coach of the Year (2002); ACC Coach of the Year (1999, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2019); GCAA Region Coach of the Year (1999, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014); has coached three U.S. Amateur champions (Matt Kuchar 1997, Andy Ogletree 2019, Tyler Strafaci 2020); Inducted into the Golf Coaches Association of America Hall of Fame in 2021; Inducted into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame in 2022; Named Georgia Tech Honorary Alumnus in 2018; Successful completion of the CPA exam on first sitting (November, 1985); Member of American Institute of Certified Public Accountants; Member of the Golf Coaches Association of America, served as treasurer since 2007
Post-Season as a Head Coach: 24 NCAA regional appearances, 19 NCAA Finals appearances, 4 NCAA runner-up finishes (1998, 2002, 2005, 2023), 5 NCAA Match Play appearances (2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2023), NCAA regional champions (1998, 1999, 2002, 2015, 2022, 2023), ACC Champions (1999, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2023); 2002 NCAA individual champion (Troy Matteson). As an Assistant Coach: 1995 NCAA Championship, first place (Oklahoma State); 1992 NCAA Championship, third place (Oklahoma State); 1991 NCAA Individual Champion (Warren Schutte, UNLV); 1990 West Region Champion (UNLV).
If a consistently high level of success over a long period of time is the measure of a great program, then Georgia Tech’s golf program under Bruce Heppler would certainly meet the standard. His peers recognized this long ago in 2013 when they inducted him into the Golf Coaches Association of America Hall of Fame, and most recently was selected for induction into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame in 2022.
Georgia Tech’s run of Atlantic Coast Conference championships and NCAA Championships performances – 14 ACC titles, 19 trips to the NCAA Championship finals and four national runner-up finishes – are unprecedented for any sports program in school history, while the Yellow Jackets have won 72 tournaments in his 29 years.
Bruce Heppler, the 10th-longest tenured head coach in Division I at 29 years, has guided the Yellow Jackets to an NCAA regional every year since 1998 (no NCAA championships were held in spring of 2020), while 19 of those teams advanced to the NCAA Finals. Twelve of those teams have finished in the top eight, with five of those teams reaching match play since that format was introduced in 2009. In 2023, the Yellow Jackets reached the finals of match play at the NCAA Championship for the first time, where they fell to Florida, 3-1, for the program’s fifth all-time runner-up finish.
Prior to that, three Tech teams finished as national runner-up under the former 72-hole stroke-play format. During his tenure, Tech has won or shared 14 Atlantic Coast Conference titles. Only two ACC coaches have led their teams to more ACC titles than has Heppler. With victories in the last four years by Andy Ogletree (2019) and Tyler Strafaci (2020), as well as Matt Kuchar in 1997, three of his players have won the coveted United States Amateur Championship, which is tied for the most by any college coach.
He has been named ACC Coach of the Year 10 times, most recently in 2019, more than any ACC coach in conference history. He also is a member of the Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame in October of 2022.
Since 2000, Tech has finished outside the top 10 in both polls only four times.
In a July, 2015 poll of his coaching peers conducted by Golfweek magazine, Heppler ranked No. 3. His program was ranked No. 2 among College Factual’s ranking of the best colleges to play golf, taking into account both the quality of the golf team, as well as the academic success of the players and the quality of the school.
Heppler has recruited and developed his share of star players as well. The Yellow Jackets have had at least a pair of All-Atlantic Coast Conference honorees 22 times in 28 years, and landed four members of the team on the squad four times (2005, 2011, 2018, 2019). Tech has had at least two players earn All-America honors 15 times, with 22 first-team selections in that period of time. Three of his players, Matt Kuchar, Bryce Molder and Troy Matteson, have been named national player of the year.
Twelve of Heppler’s players are currently active members of either the PGA Tour or the Korn Ferry Tour, with several other recent graduates climbing their way through the other professional tours.
Three of Heppler’s players at Georgia Tech – Kuchar in 1997, Ogletree in 2019 and Tyler Strafaci in 2020 – have won the coveted United States Amateur Championship. Only one other college coach, Buster Bishop at Florida in the 1960s and 1970s, can claim that distinction. With Andy Ogletree’s and Tyler Strafaci’s victories in 2019 and 2020, Georgia Tech became the first institution to have teammates win the title in back-to-back years.
Kuchar, Molder, Nicholas Thompson, Cameron Tringale, Ogletree and Strafaci have represented the United States in the Walker Cup matches. Twice, in 1998 and 2013, five or more of the Heppler’s active Tech players have qualified to play in the U.S. Amateur. Six of Tech’s seven returning players in 2013 competed in that year’s U.S. Amateur in Brookline, Mass., an unprecedented feat.
Heppler has been named to coach the United States team in the Palmer Cup twice, in 2003 and 2015, and 11 of his players have also represented the USA in that annual event.
On the conference level since 1985, when the Yellow Jackets won their first ACC Championship, Tech has earned more NCAA Championship berths than any team except Clemson. The Jackets have earned more top-10, more top-5 and more top-2 finishes in NCAA Championship competition than any other ACC team. Tech also has had more All-America selections (65) than any other ACC team during the same period except the Tigers.
His players have been just as successful in the classroom. Tech’s golf program has been recognized with a perfect Academic Progress Report score of 1000 for 19 straight years, and every senior has graduated.
Twenty-six different players under Heppler have been named All-America Scholars (a total of 49 times) by the Golf Coaches Association of America, which requires a minimum 3.2 GPA and participation in at least 75 percent of a team’s events. Two, All-Americans Bryce Molder and Roberto Castro, received the NCAA’s Top VIII Award, an honor given to eight student-athletes from all sports each year and recognizes those who excel in their sport and in the classroom, and exhibit high character, leadership and service to others.
It didn’t take long for Heppler to restore the glory to Tech’s golf program following a couple of lean years in the mid-1990s. After recruiting future All-Americans Kuchar and Molder, Heppler had the Yellow Jackets back in the NCAA Tournament in his third season, where they finished third, just four shots off the lead. Tech also was ranked No. 1 in the nation during the course of the year and won the NCAA East Regional.
Even better things were to come as Tech captured the first of its ACC titles under Heppler in 1999. In 2000 the Yellow Jackets came the closest to an NCAA Championship in their history, tying for first after 72 holes with Oklahoma State before losing a one-hole playoff. On the year, Tech captured four team titles and finished in the top four in each event it entered.
During the 2001 campaign, the Jackets won their second ACC crown in three years, the second under Heppler, captured a school-record-tying five tournament wins during the year and finished fourth in the NCAA Championship. For his efforts, Heppler was named ACC Coach of the Year and guided three All-Americans in Molder, who was also the consensus National Player of the Year, Matteson and Kris Mikkelsen.
In 2002, Heppler led the Yellow Jackets to arguably the best season in school history, as Tech captured seven team titles, a new program record, and finished second at the NCAA Championship. In the process, Heppler earned National and ACC Coach of the Year honors. During the year, the Jackets won the school’s eighth ACC title, while placing all five starters on GCAA All-America teams. Under Heppler’s tutelage, Matteson became the third Tech player to win the individual national collegiate title.
The Yellow Jackets have been to the NCAA Championship every year since 1998 (no championship was held in 2020), and only five times in that period failed to advance out of a regional. In the 15 years the NCAA has conducted the current medal/match play format for the championship, Tech has advanced to match play five times. The Jackets advanced to the match play finals for the first time in 2023, where they fell to Florida, 3-1.
A native of St. George, Utah, Heppler has demonstrated his strength as a recruiter by attracting both National Players of the Year during 1997-98 and the ACC Players of the Year for 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. His first recruit at Tech was Kuchar, who won the 1997 U.S. Amateur Championship and was named the ACC Player of the Year and the Fred Haskins National Player of the Year in 1998. Molder was the Jack Nicklaus Player of the Year in 1998 and in 2001, along with being named the ACC Player of the Year in 1999, 2000 and 2001. The trio of seniors who graduated in 2020 – Ogletree, Strafaci and Luke Schniederjans – won 14 tournaments, including two ACC Championships, and four individual titles.
All those accomplishments led the Georgia Tech Alumni Association to name him an Honorary Alumnus in 2018.
Heppler, a dean’s list student at Brigham Young, earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting from BYU in 1985, and later received his master’s degree in sport management from Massachusetts in 1988. He played golf for one year at Dixie Junior College in St. George before transferring to Brigham Young.
He became a certified public accountant in 1985 and spent one year in the firm of Huber and Associates in Salt Lake City, then began his collegiate coaching career in 1987 as the men’s and women’s golf coach at Amherst. He then spent two years as an administrative assistant at UNLV, becoming the assistant men’s golf coach at UNLV in 1989. He spent two years in that role before moving to Oklahoma State in 1991.
“Georgia Tech is a great fit for me,” said Heppler. “This is one of the five or six best programs right now if you look around at college golf’s successful teams since the ‘90s. We have a lot of alumni on the PGA Tour, which is great for the school. Young people can see they have a chance to be player of the year or win a national championship here. It’s a great school academically, which is a real draw with the general pool of talent out there interested in playing college golf.”
Heppler is married to the former Traci Schull of Southbury, Conn., and they have a son, Zakary, and a daughter, Moriah. Heppler is actively involved with Atlanta Alliance for Children and is a past president of the Golf Coaches Association of America.
