Debuted each year at the OSCARS - the year-end highlight video provides a look back at all 26 varsity sports competed at the University of Notre Dame and is created in cooperation with the Student Welfare and Development Office and LeSea Broadcasting.
In five seasons as the Fighting Irish women's golf head coach, Susan Holt, the 2011 BIG EAST Coach of the Year, has ushered the program into a period of unprecedented success that includes an active streak of four consecutive NCAA Regional appearances, including the first NCAA team appearance in program history in 2011.
Additionally, the top-four season stroke averages in program history have been set under her watch. In Holt's tenure, the Irish have won 10 tournaments titles and captured two BIG EAST Championship crowns in both 2008 and '11, while her players have garnered medalist honors on six occasions.
Holt was introduced as head coach of the University of Notre Dame women's golf program in August of 2006. She became the second full-time head coach in the history of the Fighting Irish program and the fourth overall since women's golf became a varsity sport prior to the 1988- 89 season.
During the past '11 campaign, Holt led the Irish to four first-place finishes. The team won the
Mary Fossum Invitational to begin the 2010-11 season, followed by a victory on their home course, at the William K. Warren Invitational. Then, at the John Kirk/Intercollegiate Classic the Irish finished first, before capturing the BIG EAST title where Nicole Zhang, Becca Huffer, So-Hyun Park and Kristina Nhim each earned all-BIG EAST honors.
In her fourth season, Holt guided the Irish to a third consecutive NCAA Central Regional appearance - the first time Notre Dame has played in three straight NCAA Regional fields - and led the Irish to the fourth-best season stroke average with a 306.60 mark. Notre Dame's best finish of the season came at the Alamo Invitational when the Irish shot a combined four- over par 292 to tie for sec- ond in the 12-team field. While Annie Brophy earned co-medalist hon- ors at the event, Becca Huffer, So-Hyun Park and Katie Conway all fired two-over par 74s to round out the scoring. Notre Dame also finished third at both the Bettie Lou Evans Invite (tie) and the 2010 BIG EAST Championship.
Three of Holt's players earned all-BIG EAST accolades in 2010 including Brophy, Conway and Huffer. With her fourth such honor, Brophy became just the second player in program his- tory to earn all-BIG EAST accolades four times, while she and Huffer had the added distinction of being two of the six unanimous selections to the 12-person team.
In her five seasons with the Irish, Holt has seen 10 of her players combine to win 19 All-BIG EAST honors. Additionally, Huffer earned BIG EAST Rookie of the Year accolades in 2009.
During the 2009-10 campaign, Holt presided over one of the program's best individual performances as Huffer put together one of Notre Dame's most statistically impressive seasons. Huffer recorded a 74.90 stroke average, which is the third-best mark in program history. She also saw all 30 of her rounds counted towards team scoring and she led the Irish at six of their 11 tournaments. At the end of a dominating season in which she finished in the top-20 at 10 of 11 events, Huffer narrowly missed individual qualifi- cation for the NCAA Championship field but, with her tie for 16th at the NCAA Central Regional, she turned in the best ever finish by a Notre Dame golfer in NCAA play.
In 2008-09, Holt led the Irish back to the NCAA Central Regional for the second consecutive year, marking just the second time in program history that Notre Dame qualified for NCAA play in back- to-back seasons. She did so with the Irish playing a challenging slate of tournaments that included the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge in Palos Verdes, Calif. and the Bryan National Collegiate in Greensboro, N.C. The Irish were ranked inside the Golfstat top-25 for parts of the season for the second consecutive year and they captured the Heather Farr Memorial Tournament, finishing with a program low score of 858 (-6), besting the previous record by 12 strokes. The Irish combined to post a 303.39 stroke average for the season, a mark bested only by a 300.47 mark recorded in 2007-08. The Irish finished in the top-five in four of the 11 tournaments on the season and registered 16 top-15 individual showings.
Holt fielded a team that earned four all-BIG EAST accolades. The four all-league members tied a program record, which had also been achieved the previous two seasons under Holt. The Irish also combined to post three of the five lowest rounds in school history and four of the top-eight tournament totals in program history. Huffer claimed BIG EAST Freshman of the Year honors, while Lisa Maunu claimed medalist honors at the 2009 BIG EAST Tournament, Notre Dame's second medalist in as many years at the event.
Three seasons ago, in Holt's second season with the Irish, Notre Dame won the 2008 BIG EAST title. Holt was named the conference's coach of the year after putting together what turned out to be a record-breaking campaign in many ways. The Irish produced a school-record 300.47 stroke average and won a program-best five tournaments, including the BIG EAST cham- pionship. Three straight wins to open the season signified another program milestone for the Irish. Three golfers combined to win four tournaments on the season and the year was capped with a trip to the NCAA Central Regional in Austin, Texas.
After the record breaking 2007-08 campaign, Park became the program's first All-America hon- oree as she copped honorable mention All- America accolades from the National Golf Coaches Association and Golfweek magazine. Park won two tournaments on the year and posted a single season-best 73.63 stroke average.
The 2007-08 season commenced with a win at the Cougar Classic in Hanahan, S.C. Maunu earned med- alist honors by firing a school- record three-round total of 210 (-6). Maunu's first-round six-under par 66 also represented a program record. Notre Dame followed that with a victory at the Napa River Grill Cardinal Cup in Simpsonville, Ky. Park made it a second clean sweep for the Fighting Irish as she claimed the victory. The Irish made it three- in-a-row with a triumph at the Wolverine Invitational in Ann Arbor, Mich.
A fourth team victory was achieved in the spring at the Rio Verde Collegiate Invitational in Rio Verde, Ariz. For the third time on the year, Notre Dame swept the hardware as Park captured the individual title.
Holt and the Irish then delivered on one of the team's goals for the year by winning the BIG EAST title by nine shots over two-time defending con- ference champion Louisville in Batavia, Ohio. Brophy became the first Notre Dame golfer to win the BIG EAST title outright. Brophy and three of her teammates went on to claim all-conference accolades.
In all, the Irish finished in the top-five in nine of the 11 tournaments on the season and registered 20 top-10 individual showings. Notre Dame also reached as high as 12th in the Golfstat rankings during the year. That was the highest ranking ever for the Irish, who had two freshmen and two sophomores in the five-person scoring lineup all season long. Notre Dame garnered the ninth seed in the NCAA Central Regional before finishing 16th.
In her first campaign with the Fighting Irish, Holt's team posted a then school-record scoring average of 305.46 during the 2006-07 season. Holt steered Notre Dame to a runner-up finish at the 2007 BIG EAST Championship. The Irish tied Louisville with a season-best 891 (+27) total during the 54-hole event but Notre Dame fell to the Cardinals by one stroke in the first hole of a sud- den-death playoff. The Irish tied a program record by placing four student-athletes on the all-BIG EAST Team with the fine performance at the 2007 BIG EAST Championship.
Throughout the season, Notre Dame produced two runner-up finishes, including one at the Lady Irish Invitational. The other second- place finish occurred at Kansas' Marilynn Smith Sunflower Invitational. The results were even more impressive given the Irish squad featured three freshmen in the five-person scoring lineup during the entire spring semester.
Notre Dame also made history when senior co-captain Noriko Nakazaki became the first team member in program history to qualify for NCAA play as an individual entrant. Nakazaki carded a three-round score of 224 (+11) to place in a tie for 18th at the NCAA Central Regional in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Holt's presence at the head of the Fighting Irish program has also produced big dividends on the recruiting trail. Holt brought in the top recruiting class in program history for the 2007- 08 season as Notre Dame's Class of 2011 was comprised of Conway and Park, who were both ranked in the top-25 nationally. Another stellar class that featured Huffer- also a top-25 recruit- and Katie Allare joined the Irish in the fall of 2008. In the fall of 2010, the highly touted duo of Kristina Nhim and Nicole Zhang, who is also a top-25 recruit and a qualifier for the '10 US. Women's Open, joined the Irish last fall.
In addition to their performances on the course, Holt's teams have excelled academically as well. Twenty-seven times, her players have been named to the National Golf Coaches Association All-Scholar Golf Team (3.5 grade- point average and play in 66 percent of events). In 2010-11, six of her players earned BIG EAST Academic All-Star honors, bringing her five-year total to 25 BIG EAST Academic All-Star honors while leading the Irish program.
Holt came to Notre Dame from the University of South Florida, where she spent 13 successful seasons guiding the Bulls. In her final season, USF joined the BIG EAST Conference and she led the Bulls to a tie for third, along with the Irish, in their inaugural BIG EAST tournament.
"First and foremost, I was attracted by the opportunity to come to what I believe is the best academic and athletic combination that's out there," says Holt on why she decided to come to Notre Dame following a successful run at South Florida.
"The commitment to the golf program with the course and the new indoor facility makes a statement. As a coach you want to know that you have a chance to be successful and you can tell that's how it is at Notre Dame and it's impressive to see that."
A native of Dayton, Ohio, Holt made a return to the Midwest, where she began her college coaching career at Purdue University, with her hiring at Notre Dame. She was at the helm of the women's golf program at Purdue for four seasons from 1990-93 before taking the position at South Florida. Holt directed the USF program to 16 team titles and 17 runner-up finishes, including five of 10 Conference USA Championships. She guided the team and/or individuals to 11 NCAA Regional appearances and trips to the NCAA Championship Finals in 2001 and 2002.
Holt's teams at South Florida won at least one tournament in 10 of her 13 seasons and she was recognized as the Conference USA Coach of the Year in 1996, 1999 and 2001. In the spring of 2005, Holt was named Conference USA Coach of the Decade for wom- en's golf (1995-2005). Under Holt's watch, South Florida players were named to the Conference USA All-Conference Team 23 times. Current LPGA player and South Florida graduate Kelly Lagedrost was named Conference USA Player of the Year in 2001. Former South Florida golfer Christina Jones was named Conference USA Freshman of the Year in 2005.
Prior to college coaching, Holt worked as a club professional in West Palm Beach, Fla., and in Ipswich, Mass. She is a 1988 graduate of Ohio State University, where she played on the women's golf team that won Big Ten Championships in 1985 and 1988 and played in the NCAA Championship those same years.
Holt graduated from Fairmont High School in Kettering, Ohio. She has been a member of the PGA of America since 1992.
Susan married Tim Holt of Kokomo, Ind., in 1993 and they are the parents of two children, Justin and Kristin. Tim, who is also a PGA member, is the current head coach at nearby Holy Cross College.
