OXFORD – A lot has changed since the last time Ole Miss men’s golf won an SEC championship.
First off, there were only 10 teams in the SEC back in 1984. Billy Brewer was the Rebels’ head football coach. And current head coach Chris Malloy, the 2025 Golfweek Coach of the Year, was 6 years old and living in Virginia.
You could say last Sunday was a long time coming in Oxford.
“I saw something yesterday or the day before that put it in perspective. Ronald Reagan was president (and) 'Ghostbusters' was the movie coming out,” Malloy said.
Coming off a program-best third-place finish at the NCAA Championships in 2025, expectations for the Rebels were sky high in the preseason, particularly with the anticipated return of NCAA individual champion Michael La Sasso. La Sasso participated in three fall events for Ole Miss before joining LIV Golf in late January, less than a month before the team’s first spring season tournament at the Watersound Invitational. Add in an ice storm that devastated Oxford, and it was a perfect mix of everything going wrong at once.
But here came Ole Miss, overcoming its circumstances to power through the regular season and take down No. 1 Auburn in the SEC Championship semifinals and No. 3 Florida in the finals to claim the program’s first conference title in more than four decades.
The Rebels’ lineup of senior Tom Fischer, senior Cameron Tankersley, senior Cohen Trolio, junior Collins Trolio and freshman Daniel Tolf defeated the Gators 4-1 in match play. Fischer, Tankersley and Collins Trolio each won their matches, while Cohen Trolio and Tolf’s matches ended in ties.
The 11th-ranked Rebels learn their postseason fate May 6 at the NCAA selection show.
“They rallied around each other. They had that confidence. … I didn’t have to tell them a whole lot. We were thrown a couple of haymakers,” Malloy said. “ … That’s how our semester started. And to go from that moment – which, a couple of pretty low moments – I didn’t have to say a whole lot to the guys. They knew the task in front of them. They knew what it looked like.”
There may not have been a singular moment when Malloy, who took over as Ole Miss’ head coach in 2014 after serving as the head coach at USF and as an assistant at Florida State, realized his current group was one that would make history. But there were certainly signs.
Ole Miss blew a large lead in the Mossy Oak Collegiate in mid-April but was able to rally on the back nine and finish as co-champion. That was “a turning point” Malloy said, as it showed a “bit of a different team, a little bit of a different confidence.” There was also something different in the air the very next week when the Rebels arrived at the Sea Island Golf Club in Georgia for the conference championships.
“I know people aren’t going to believe me, but when we showed up over in Sea Island, we got there on Monday, the practice round was Tuesday, and walking off that practice round – I told only a couple of people – but I said it was going to be a special week,” Malloy said. “Those that know me, I don’t say that a whole lot. … Just felt like a team of destiny.”
For Malloy, Sunday was far more than a culmination of 12 years of hard work as the Rebels’ head coach. Malloy played collegiately at Ole Miss in 1999 and 2000 and has led the Rebels to nine straight NCAA regionals. Rebels head football coach Pete Golding is one of Malloy’s best friends – Golding was texting Malloy throughout the final against Florida to a point where Malloy had to tell him to stop – and Malloy is caddying for Golding at The Drummond Co. Celebrity Pro-Am in Birmingham, Alabama.
Malloy is an Ole Miss Rebel at heart. That’s precisely why the newest trophy in the golf offices means so much to him.
“I love Ole Miss. I love it with all my heart. That’s what makes this even more special,” Malloy said. “ … I love Ole Miss. I love Ole Miss golf certainly, and there’s nobody that (head coach) Kory (Henkes) has rooting harder for her than me. … Jamie (Trachsel) at softball (I’m) rooting harder, baseball. I mean, all of them. I’m Ole Miss through and through and always will be.
“ … At University of South Florida, I’ve won (a) conference championship. At Florida State, I was an assistant (for) one. Those were all special. This is just a little bit more special. It’s your alma mater, and I love it with everything.”