The 2025-26 campaign marks Carter Collins' 19th season on the Georgia Southern men’s golf coaching staff and his 12th campaign as head coach of the men’s program.
During Collins’ time with the program, Georgia Southern has made 11 NCAA Championship appearances, advancing to the NCAA Championship Finals three times, and the Eagles have won two team Sun Belt Conference Championships and two Southern Conference titles.
He has coached four All-Americans, 22 GCAA All-American scholars, 10 All-SoCon selections, two SoCon Golfer of the Year winners, two SoCon Freshman of the Year recipients, four Sun Belt Golfers of the Year (five awards), two Sun Belt Freshmen of the Year, one SBC Newcomer of the Year and 13 All-Sun Belt recipients (25 awards).
Collins has been named the Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year four times (2015, 2019, 2021 and 2023), and the Eagles have won 19 team tournament titles and posted the two lowest team scores in NCAA Regional Play (834 in 2019 and 2022). In addition, five Eagles have won conference medalist honors under his tutelage.
In 2024-25, Georgia Southern finished third in Sun Belt stroke play and advanced to match play for the seventh time in the past eight contested championships and Brantley Baker tied for third in the individual competition. He became the 11th Eagle in program history to finish in the top three at the SBC event. Parker Claxton recorded the 15th-lowest season average in program history, earning an individual spot at the Auburn Regional and also earned All-East Region honors from PING and the GCAA.
The 2022-23 campaign saw the Eagles win four team stroke-play tournaments, claim the Schenkel Invitational title for a second consecutive season and win stroke play at the Sun Belt Championship for the fourth straight year. GS earned a fourth consecutive NCAA Championship appearance, and three different Eagles won individual titles. In 2023-24 a new lineup came together late as the Eagles won the Colleton River title for the third year in a row and picked up match play victories over Army West Point, Augusta and the College of Charleston. On the individual side, Brycen Jones was named Sun Belt Freshman of the Year and Reece Coleman earned Newcomer of the Year honors.
The Eagles won three tournaments in 2021-22, including stroke play at the Sun Belt Championship, and finished fifth at the New Haven Regional to earn a trip to the NCAA Finals. Mason Williams advanced to the final round of stroke play at the NCAA Finals and finished tied for 20th.
The Eagles won two tournaments in the 2020-21 season, including the Sun Belt Championship, which brought the total of team tournament wins to 10 during Collins' tenure as head coach. GS advanced to the NCAA Tallahassee Regional, its ninth appearance in the last 12 NCAA Championships.
In a banner 2018-19 season, Collins led the Eagles to their first NCAA Championship Finals appearance since 2010, where Steven Fisk placed second on the individual leaderboard, the best finish for an Eagle in school history. Collins was named the Sun Belt Coach of the Year, while Fisk earned conference Golfer of the Year honors for the second time before earning a slew of other accolades, including PING and Golfweek first-team All-America accolades.
GS won three team tournaments, including their second Schenkel Invitational title, and GS placed first in stroke play at the Sun Belt Championship after recording a school record 21-under-par 263 in the final round. The Eagles earned an at-large bid to the Stanford Regional, where they shot a school NCAA regional best 834 to finish fourth, also a program best, to advance to the NCAA Finals.
Collins won Sun Belt Coach of the Year honors in his first season in 2014-15 as the Eagles won the league championship in their first year in the conference. Kim Koivu took medalist honors, and Scott Wolfes placed second. Both earned all-conference honors, and Wolfes was named the Sun Belt Golfer of the Year and a PING Honorable Mention All-American. The Eagles advanced to the NCAA Regional for the third straight season.
Collins guided the Eagles back to the NCAA Regionals in 2016-17 as Georgia Southern finished in the top-4 of four consecutive prestigious events, capped by a second-place outing in the Sun Belt Championship, in the spring. Fisk and Jake Storey tied for first at the conference championship and earned all-conference honors, and Storey was also named the league's Golfer of the Year.
In 2012 and 2013, Collins was a semifinalist for the Jan Strickland Award, given to the top assistant coach in the country by the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA).
As a player, Collins has won the Johnny Skeadas Cup, a points-based award involving many amateur golf tournaments in Georgia that stretch from March to September, four times (2012, 2014, 2015 and 2019). In 2014, he was runner-up at the GSGA State Amateur at Idle Hour in Macon, Georgia, with scores of 70-69-70-70 and won a USGA US Open Local Qualifier, advancing to Sectional Qualifying and a chance to play in the US Open on Pinehurst No. 2.
In August of 2008, prior to beginning his second year at Georgia Southern, Collins qualified for the U.S. Amateur Championship in dramatic style - making an eagle on his last hole to shoot 64 and force a playoff (69-64=133). He went on to birdie the playoff hole and earned himself a spot in the final 312 competitors who played at Pinehurst No. 2 and No. 4. In 2004 and 2014, Collins and his father, Steve, won the National Father-Son Invitational, played at the Country Club of North Carolina in Southern Pines.
Collins lettered four years on the Georgia College & State University men’s golf team (2001-2005) under the guidance of Jimmy Wilson. A 2003-04 Division II All-America, All-South Region and All-Peach Belt Conference selection, Collins was also the recipient of the Michael Peeler Golf Award - honoring GCSU’s team leader and top golfer in 2004-05. Collins repeated his status on the all-conference and All-South Region teams in 2004-05, and during his career at GCSU, he and the Bobcats competed at four regional and two national championships.
Collins was a four-year letterwinner for the Claxton High School golf team from 1998-2001, earning MVP honors all four years. An active student off the course as well, Collins participated with the D.A.R.E. program as a role model, traveling to schools to speak about drug abuse prevention.
Collins earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from GCSU in 2006. He and his wife, Rebecca, were married in the summer of 2012, and live in Statesboro with their daughter, Sydney, and sons, Jase and Cooper.
