Brian Ashley is in his seventh season as the head women’s golf coach and assistant men’s golf coach at Coastal Carolina University. He has taken the program to a new level, as his teams hold six of the top seven scoring averages in Coastal Carolina history.
In 2005-06, the women's golf team had several accomplishments within the program with two runner-up finishes at the Unlimited Potential/Bay Tree Classic and the PUPS/PDPS Big South Conference Championships. As a freshman, Ann Maness became the second consecutive Big South medalist for CCU, shooting a school-record 68 in the final round to capture the title. Maness and Katy Heher were named All-Big South, while Heher again garnered National Golf Coaches Association (NGCA) All-American Scholar honors.
During the 2004-05 season, Coastal’s women’s golf program established itself as a team to be reckoned with in the East Region, winning the Big South title and making its fi rst appearance in the NCAA Regionals. The squad set a new single-season scoring record, breaking the old mark by over seven shots per round. The team placed in the top-five in eight of its 11 events, including wins in the Big South Championship and the Lady Herd/El Diablo Invitational and runner-up finishes in three other events. Ashley also had several individuals with significant accomplishments in 2005 as well.
Line Cordes was the Big South Player of the Year and Scholar-Athlete of the Year, winning the individual title at the PUPS Big South Championship and setting new Coastal single-season and career records.
Heher won her fi rst collegiate event at the Lady Herd/El Diablo Invitational as well. Additionally, Ashley had his first ESPN The Magazine Academic All-American as presented by CoSIDA, as Cordes was named to the at-large second team.
The NGCA also honored the squad as an All-Scholar Team after recording better than a 3.45 grade-point average as a team, as well as awarding Cordes, Heher and Natalie Cruse with All-American Scholar honors.
In 2003-04, the Lady Chanticleers captured their third and fourth team titles under Ashley, as the Lady Chanticleers won the Unlimited Potential/Bay Tree Classic and the Shamrock Intercollegiate. The team posted the third-best team average in school history, along with three of the top eight single-season scoring averages at Coastal.
Additionally, Ashley had three NGCA All-American Scholars in Cruse, Cordes and Heher.
Ashley has made the program a perennial contender in the Big South over the last five years, including runner-up finishes in 2002, 2003 and 2004.
Ashley’s teams own five of the top six single-season scoring averages in the program’s history, including last year’s record-setting season. He has also coached players with seven of the top 10 single-season scoring averages and nine of the top 10 career averages. He has coached 11 All-Big South golfers, including Letzig, who earned All-Big South honors in 2005, along with Cordes, Cruse and Heher.
During the 2001-02 year, the Lady Chanticleers continued to impress, finishing in the top five in five events, including a team victory in the Catamount Intercollegiate and a runner-up placing in the 2002 Big South Women’s Golf Championship. The team also crowned two individual champions during the year, Morgan O’Banion at the Catamount Intercollegiate and Paige Landry in the Big South Championship.
In his first season, the women’s squad made tremendous strides under Coach Ashley, dropping nearly five strokes per round off the team average from 1999-2000. The Lady Chanticleers finished in the top-10 in eight of their 11 tournaments, including capturing the team title at the 2001 Elon College Intercollegiate by a stroke, the program’s first victory since winning the 1998 Big South Tournament.
Ashley came to Coastal Carolina after serving as the head men’s and women’s golf coach at Gardner-Webb College for the 1999-2000 season. He led the women’s program at Gardner-Webb to a final national ranking of seventh in NCAA Division II and coached All-American Hannah Storey. On the men’s side, Ashley led a resurgence in the program as the Bulldogs improved over 30 spots in the national rankings.
Ashley, a native of Salisbury, North Carolina, is a 1991 graduate of East Rowan High School. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in sports management from Pfeiffer University in 1995. He and his wife, Lindsay, reside in North Myrtle Beach with their son, Shaw.
