Lauren Guiao | Purdue University's Women's Golf

In this episode of College Golf Today, host Kelly Okun speaks with Lauren Guiao, assistant women’s golf coach at Purdue University and alumna of the golf program herself.

Lauren shares how she switched from an accounting path to coaching, knowing it was the right move after her first tournament on the other side of the ropes. She also explains how she navigated coaching former teammates by balancing personal relationships with constructive critique, a transition many up-and-coming coaches may face. 

Lauren then dives into why the assistant golf coach role is her favorite place to be, relaying her responsibilities with recruiting, tournament qualifying and, most importantly, her players' success on and off the golf course. She finishes with yet another definition of success that aspiring and current golf coaches should add to their philosophies.

Transcript

Meet Lauren Guiao: From College Player to College Coach

From Accounting to Coaching

How to Coach Former Teammates

Why Being the Assistant Coach Is the "Best Job"

Coach Lauren's Take on Recruiting and NIL

What Makes a Great Golf Recruit

How-to: Tournament Qualifying and Lineup Picks

Advice for New and Aspiring Coaches

Defining Success as an Assistant Coach

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to College Golf Today, inspiring tomorrow's Coaches and Players, a podcast in partnership with the Women's Golf Coaches Association and Fairway to Green. I'm your host, Kelly Okin, and a former Division I and Professional Golfer. We are excited to dive into College Golf's biggest topics with the coaches themselves. We're talking best coaching and recruiting practices, their take on current trends like NIL, and Sage advice for new and aspiring coaches, all straight from the source. Today we're joined by Lauren Giao, Purdue University's women's assistant golf coach and an alumna of the program herself. Lauren shares how to manage the transition from player to coach of former teammates, how her role is involved with recruiting, and the mindset she takes each day to make her program better. Lauren, thank you so much for joining us today. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got into coaching? So this is my fourth year at Purdue. I played at Purdue, did my master's at Purdue, worked in the fundraising department at Purdue, and I originally got my degree and my master's in accounting. And I had the whole job planned out. I was at my college apartment studying for my professional exams post-graduating for my master's, and kind of right place at the right time, the assistant job came open, and I got a call on a random Saturday saying, Hey, you know, we just hired Zach Byrd as a head coach. Would you be interested in staying? I'm like, I don't know. Like, I have a job set up in Chicago. I've always thought about college coaching. When I was in school, I thought, well, the assistant job is the best job out of everybody here. And so I just wasn't sure. I think I talked to Zach for that night, Saturday, Sunday, and I thought, sure. Tried it Monday, and I said, okay, just for one year. Let's see, and I'll go back to being an accountant. And it was the second day of the first tournament we played. And I went up to him and I said, Yeah, I think I really like this. So it was kind of right place at right time, but I'm really happy with where I've ended up, and I plan on staying in coaching for as long as I can. It's great. What happened that second day of that first tournament that really solidified this for you? I think for me in that moment, I just kind of saw it. Like it clicked for me, where you know, I just joined the team again with some of the teammates I used to play with. We were really focused on practicing and prep and rebuilding a culture with the new coaching staff. And it was just that feeling on the course of okay, I do have an impact, or there is a difference of just I love this. There's something really satisfying about it, really fulfilling about it, that I knew I couldn't get from another career or another part of my life. And I also didn't want him to go looking for another assistant coach. But I knew that I felt that way. So yeah, it was kind of the first time where I experienced, I guess, my first coaching moment and thought, wow, you know, this is what it's kind of about. And I keep having those moments throughout my career. It feels different as I've become a little bit older than the girls, or that I've gone through more experiences and have gone through, I guess, one full cycle of being a coach, but I still continue to kind of have that fulfillment and that feeling for it. How was it coaching your former teammates those first couple of years? It was definitely a transition. I would say that even when I was on the team, I felt like I had an interim role with the coaches and my teammates still. And so, of course, there's hard parts where you're used to seeing them or talking to them as friends, but you just kind of transitioned to saying, okay, I now look at you as a person, and I now look at you from this outside third-party perspective where I kind of have more of an influence on the things that you're passionate about. So there's definitely some conflict with towing that line of okay, how do we still have a personal relationship together, and how do I get to be judgmental and critical about you in a respectful way? And I think it was a great opportunity that I got to go through those first couple years with my teammates because there was a lot of respect still. I knew them, but I was also able to learn in a really safe environment to where if I kind of took a wrong step as a coach, they had the confidence in me or we had the confidence in our relationship to say, like, hey, that was out of bounds. So now that you know my players only know me as a coach, I feel like I learned in a really safe environment and have a better understanding of okay, you know, where the division of the relationships are, or how we can still have a personal relationship, and I still get to judge you and be critical and push you and be hard on you, because that's just always been my coaching experience. So I'm really grateful that they trusted me when I was 22 years old, or when I didn't know anything about coaching, really about that side of golf. So I give big respect for my teammates that went through that transition with me. Yeah, it sounds like your teammates and your head coach taught you, which is incredible. Yeah. And you said being the assistant coach was the dream job, the dream position. Why is that? When I was a player, I thought, okay, well, the head coach has to be the bad guy, and the head coach has all the stress. You know, me as a player in college, I'm like, okay, I have school, I have golf, I have my life going on too. And the assistant gets to be the fun guy, gets to be the good cop, gets to go travel and recruit, and still play, and kind of I think take the best of being a player, and take the best of being a coach, and not always have to face the negative consequences of being either. So that was my perspective as a player, and then now as a coach, I still think it's the best role where I get to be close to the girls and I get to have a more not intimate, but like more of a friendship relationship with them and talk to them more, you know, colloquially, more calmly, and yeah, get the benefits of being a coach. So I think most people are like, okay, I want to be a head coach, so I need to start as assisting coach. Um I'm not saying that you don't ultimately want to become a head coach, but it's nice to hear that someone actually loves being the assistant coach purposely. I think with I mean, I'm 26, and so sometimes I look at my players and I go, Wow, we're the same. You know, like I get where you're coming from. I feel like genuinely I was just in your footsteps, and I'm just like one step ahead of you in life. Like I know where you are. So I think right now where I am in my personal development with my relationship with the girls, I've excel in the assistant coaching role. And of course, I do want to be a head coach one day, but I think that transition will naturally come where okay, I've experienced enough, I know enough, and now I'm ready also to have more of a not divided, but divided relationship with my players of saying, Okay, yeah, now I'm a little bit older, I know a lot more, and now we're just not vibing in the way that I think an assistant can or should, you know. So one day when I feel older, maybe the time will come. Yeah, you might never feel older. And that's another day. Yeah, and you'll still do it anyway. So that's right. The division of responsibilities between the head coach and the assistant coach. How involved are you in with the recruiting and discussing and handling NIL deals and things like that? I would say the money stuff for me, I kind of keep my hands off of it. I joke with my coach that's above my pay grade to know what other people are getting paid. So I account in. Yeah, yes, I don't mess with that at all. But recruiting-wise, I mean heavily involved. We view our team very much as a family. So, kind of how it works. If we go watch players or we get connected with a player, my boss, Zach, will talk to them first. And if he says, Okay, yes, I like their vibe, I like kind of what they bring, I can see them fitting into the culture of our team, I'll go ahead and talk to them first. And if I also like them seeing them as a fit and there's vibe there, then we go forward and they get to come on a visit and meet the girls. But for us, it's very 50-50 with recruiting because we spend so much time with our players and we're so heavily involved in all of our lives that you know, if he likes a girl and I don't, well it might not fit long term. Or if I like a girl and he doesn't, it's not gonna fit for how far we walk into life together. So very 50-50, and we're all really involved with it. What sort of qualities are you looking for in your recruits, you and Zach? I think it changes year to year, right? Like as you know, your girls are growing and they're developing as people too. So kind of their qualities and their maturity all kind of, you know, grow into it. But I'd say overall, we're looking for girls that before players, they're people, right? So you're looking for girls that are kind, are understanding, are compassionate, are you know are empathetic. We're looking for good people because we truly believe, okay, we can help you be a better golfer. I can help push you to be a better student, help you achieve those sides. But oftentimes you can't help someone be a better person. So if you're a good person, you're a good kid, you want good things for you and those around you, okay, that's the first step. And how you are as golf, okay, that's the second piece. So long-winded answer of we're like if we're good kids that like to have fun and that we can see ourselves spending nine months or more of the year together. You have the cat for the roster spots. How do you handle the qualifying? If you do you one, do you go up to nine players on your team? You do, okay. And then two, how do you handle qualifying? Because I had just learned this week that there are so many different ways to do it, and I had no idea. Yeah, so when we have more time, especially when we come back from the summer, we're a straight stroke, like qualifying style, where we'll play a bunch of rounds leading up to a tournament, and it's usually, you know, three play first spot, two coaches pick, or sometimes in the past, joining into postseason, we've done all five for stroke. So for us, yeah, it's pretty fair, it's pretty numbers don't lie. And it's if you're ready and you're competitive in qualifying, you're gonna get an opportunity to play, which I know everyone kind of has their own take on it, but it gives a lot of opportunity. You know, if you're a first year and you're feeling ready, you have that mindset and you're motivated, okay, you can go and take that spot from maybe a senior in qualifying, and we've seen that happen before. Or, you know, me as a coach kind of lets me take a back seat a little bit, where I don't get to have judgments, I don't get to put my own lens and perspective on it. You as a player, you have the choice. You know, it's not up to me, and so that keeps things fresh, it keeps people pushing, keeps people motivating because there's always that opportunity that you're the next man up, and it's up to you. And how do you create or cultivate an environment in the practice days that allow them to really push their game and try to take those spots to compete? I think in practice we do a really good mix of different types of competition, right? Because in golf you're competing against the field, but oh, you're competing against yourself and the scorecard. So depending on what we're trying to grow, we might do different types of competition. There might be a head-to-head match play where you and I are gonna play a short game, and okay, the winner of us two goes on and advances in the bracket. In the same way, we might go, okay, we're partners, and now we're gonna go play another two of our teammates and have a little camaraderie in competition. Versus there's other practices where we'll plan out a scorecard, goals, and just go straight, what did you as an individual player shoot? And how are you gonna trend in the off-season towards those numbers? So, again, mixing, I guess, your scorecard of how can you internally compete with yourself and want to do better for you when it's just numbers on a paper? And then, okay, face to face, how do you handle competing with someone right in front of you? So a little bit of both, but yeah, that's great. You obviously spent a lot of time getting your education, like your master's. Do you feel like that was still worth pursuing even becoming a coach? A hundred percent. Of course, I don't work in the accounting field. My my job still involves number and a lot of data analytics and all that sort of stuff, but obviously I'm not an accountant. I think for me with education, it's about learning about people. No matter if I was an accountant or if I'm a coach or if I'm something else, the biggest conflict that I'm gonna have in my job is how do I help manage people? How do you motivate someone? How do you lead someone? How do you get people to change if they don't want to? Right? How do you move a group of people forward towards a goal? And that's something that I encountered in the accounting world, and that's something that is the core of who I am as a coach now. So although I don't use my degrees and my parents are a little bit upset about that, I do feel that it gave me great perspective and great understanding of how people work and how you can motivate others to keep pushing forward. Yeah, and it gave you the opportunities at Purdue to get a big in Purdue. So I committed to Purdue when I was 17 years old. Never did I think that it would be the place that I was gonna get my undergrad, my master's, have my first job, get my first paycheck, and then end up also being a place that I get my dream job, my career, and you know, all of that. So I think this is year nine at Purdue. And again, never as a 17-year-old kid would I have seen that happening, but I owe a lot to Purdue for raising me. I mean, I've been here for so long. Yeah, yeah. And so, with that, what advice would you give to college players who might want to become coaches or just anyone looking to enter the college coach field? I think if you're a college student and you're looking to get into coaching, you have to be okay with the fact that your success is in the hands of those around you. And you kind of have to be in the place where you're open to being selfless enough to make other people's dreams and goals your own, right? So as an assistant, I'll come into work and say, okay, how's the best way that I can support my head coach? And then my girls finish school, and then they come in and say, okay, how can I best support their goals in school, in person, and in life? And in golf. And so a lot of times it's okay, how do I help these people grow around me? How can I lead their success that's ultimately be mine? But I'm never gonna hit a shot. I might never be the head coach that gets the interview at the end of the tournament for our successes. I never get that, but I know in my heart behind the scenes I've helped support them and grown them to what they achieve. Yeah, and to that end, how do you define success for your role? For me, success is a player that I have graduates and they're happy, right? And then okay, I call them as they start their first job, or I get to be with them as they start their pro career in golf, and they're happy. And if there's something about their mentality or about them or how they treat or view others that I feel like I've impacted, that's the most important thing for me. I mean, golf, yes, I'm a golf coach, but really what do I do is I help you be your best, or I help you see the world in a different way, or open your perspective. And so if you graduate and you're happy and you feel fulfilled and you don't regret coming to Purdue, that's the most success that I could ever ask for. Awesome. Lauren, thank you so much. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.