CELEBRATING 20 YEARS: Members of Averett men's golf's 2003 national championship team recount incredible comeback

Monday, May 15, 2023, marks the 20th anniversary of Averett University’s men’s golf team’s 2003 NCAA Division III National Championship. The anniversary comes one day before Averett’s current men’s golf team begins play at the 2023 NCAA National Championships. To commemorate the 20-year milestone of the Cougars’ historic feat, we caught up with the four living players and head coach who made history two decades ago. This story features their memories of the season and national championship and also shares where they are today.

Some of their memories have faded over time. Some of the guys have fallen out of touch as life has taken them down different paths. They’ve sadly even lost a few people over the years. Yet, what five Averett University men’s golfers did exactly 20 years ago has stood the test of time as arguably the biggest accomplishment in Averett athletics history. 

On May 15, 2003, Averett men’s golf rallied from a nine-stroke deficit in the final round to win the NCAA Division III National Championship at Dornoch Golf Club in Delaware, Ohio. Winning a team national title hadn’t been accomplished before by any of Averett’s NCAA programs and it hasn’t been accomplished since.

As the Averett men’s golf program makes its first return as a team to the NCAA National Championships this week since 2003, members of the 2003 title team reminisced about that 2002-03 season. They discussed the lead-up to the national tournament, the pact during a storm delay, a coach’s celebratory swim in a driving range lake, hypnotism — yes, hypnotism — and, of course, that historic final round that helped put Averett on the map and leave a lasting legacy that remains strong two decades later.

“I had a great time, and talking about it just brings back a lot of memories of four great years,” said Bret Efird ’03, one of the five Averett golfers who led the Cougars to the 2003 national championship that weekend in Ohio. “We traveled all over the country, a lot of good times with the guys, a lot of time in the van playing cards, telling stories. Those four years, you don't realize it but that really sets you up. You know, just the experience and the camaraderie and people you meet and the connections you make — you can't put a price on that. So for those guys that are going to the national championship this year, I hope they soak it up. I hope they enjoy the moment, enjoy the process — everything about it. There’s no guarantee that you get to do it again.”

DOMINATION AND HYPNOTIZATION

Before talking about how the Cougars won the national championship in 2003, it’s important to know how they got there in the first place. It was no fluke. Averett was led by a pair of three-time All-Americans in Janne Mommo ’03 and Toni Karjalainen ’03, natives of Finland who are both in the Averett Athletics Hall of Fame. Mommo made the 2000 NCAA National Championships as an individual and Averett had made the national tournament as a team in both 2001 and 2002, finishing ninth and 12th, respectively as a squad. Heading into the 2002-03 campaign, there were high expectations for the Cougars.

Although Mommo and Karjalainin missed the fall season, Averett still found success at the three tournaments it played in. The Cougars placed seventh at Guilford College’s Tom O’Briant Memoria, third at the Greensboro College Invitational and eighth at the Wilson College/Gordin Collegiate Classic.

“It was interesting for me as a freshman because I didn’t really know what to expect,” said Craig Hosie, who played in every event that season. “We did well in the fall and it just became the expectation. That’s all that I knew.”

In college golf, teams play five golfers and your team score is taken from the top four scores of the day. Although Averett had found success in previous years and had a number of talented golfers on the roster, the Cougars were searching for that fifth guy who could consistently score low enough. That guy was Hosie, a native of Ontario, Canada, who built a strong relationship with then-head coach Jim Gourlay, a fellow Canadian.

Once Mommo and Karjalainen returned for the spring golf season, the Cougars began to find their groove with a lineup that also consisted of Efird, Hosie and the late Jeff Johnston. That fivesome started all seven tournaments that spring. Out of the gates, Averett finished fourth at Pfeiffer University’s Pine Needles Invitational and Mommo won individually. A few weeks later, Averett won the Golden Isles Collegiate Invitational at Jekyll Island, where Karjalainen took first place. Next up, Averett won the prestigious Camp Lejeune Golf Championship and Karjalainen earned medalist honors once again. The Cougars then placed third at the Emory University Spring Invitational just prior to the conference tournament. 

“We were competing against really good teams, and really good players,” Efird recalled. “So we knew when we won the Camp Lejeune tournament, it was like, ‘OK, we absolutely belong here. We can beat any of these teams. We just did it at a huge tournament.’ So I think that was what really kind of solidified like, ‘We're here, we can do this.’”

Gourlay could sense his team was capable of something special. 

“I don’t think there was a date when the lightbulb turned on, but after we started getting some results and were right there winning some tournament … the guys felt confident,” Gourlay said. “Not arrogant, but just confident in what we were going to try to get done.”

Up next was the championship for the Dixie Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (known today as the USA South Athletic Conference). Despite their success against some of those same teams all spring, the Cougars fell short and finished third as a team with Mommo placing fourth individually. 

“It kind of gave us this chip on our shoulders going into nationals, knowing what we could do,” Hosie said after the team failed to win the conference tournament. “It lit a fire under us and we showed up in Ohio ready to go.”

Averett had one last tournament before earning an at-large bid into the NCAA National Championships. The Cougars took first place at the Fred B. Kravetz Invitational in Rochester, New York. Mommo, Hosie and Nathan Proshek, a golfer from St. John’s University (Minnesota) shared medalist honors in that final tune-up before nationals.

At some point between the conference tournament and the national tournament, Gourlay was talking one day to then-Averett professor Dr. Richard Ferguson about how the guys had gotten their heads in the wrong space at the conference tournament when mistakes happened. 

“I talked to Dr. Ferg about it for a while and with him being a sports psychologist, he wanted to do an experiment with the golf team,” Gourlay recalled. “He wanted to hypnotize them.”

One evening when the Grant Center was quit, the team met with Ferguson in the weight room and he went through the hypnotic process. 

“I was a little bit hesitant, but I did my best to think it would work,” Gourlay said. “Through that whole process, he talked about how everyone would be calm and make good decisions and be confident.”

Did it work? We’ll get to that shortly.

THE IMPROBABLE FINISH

After not winning the conference tournament, Averett arrived at the 2003 NCAA National Championships flying under the radar despite the Cougars’ dominance all spring. 

“Us being the underdog was kind of a blessing in disguise,” Gourlay said.

Averett shot an opening-round 19-over-par 303 to put the Cougars in a tie for second place after 18 holes, only trailing Wesley College, which shot an 8-over 292 on the par-71, 6,613-yard course.

In Round 2, Averett shot a collective 7-over 291 and finished the day tied for first overall with Wesley. Individually, Mommo fired a course record 6-under 65 to put him atop the leaderboard individually. Even though midway through the four-day tournament things were looking good, Averett struggled during the third round and shot a 12-over 296 to fall nine strokes behind Wesley, which led the field going into the final round. 

Prior to teeing off the final day, Gourlay and his players met that morning. Thinking back to that sports psychology session with Ferguson, Gourlay had devised a plan.

“We’re going to do something a little different today,” Gourlay remembered telling his team. “We’re not going to worry about what everyone else is shooting. You are going to stay in your own bubble, you’re going to play your game and stay in your head space.”

Efird recalls Gourlay telling them to play it almost like match play.

“If you go out and you can beat the other two guys in your group — we played in threesomes — beat those guys and the numbers will take care of themselves,” Efird said, recalling the morning meeting. “So that was kind of the way we approached it.”

Although the Cougars’ five golfers weren’t tracking each other — remember, there were no live stats in 2003 — Efird did remember catching a quick glimpse at Karjalainen on a neighboring hole as they looked to make their comeback on the final day.

“I chipped in for two, and Toni made a bomb for birdie,” Efird recalled. “I saw him raise his fist, and then the little gallery I was with cheered when I chipped it in. And I was like, ‘Man, that was awesome.’  That was huge because we knew that there's two shots at least, right?”

As Gourlay made his way around the course checking in on each of his golfers, his plan seemed to be working.

“I was the only one that knew how well we were doing,” he said. “… As I went to each of them, they were all at even par or under par, which is pretty impressive.”

Then came the storm, leading to a weather delay. All of the teams were called in, and Averett’s fivesome gathered around a picnic table at a shelter. Gourlay quickly imposed a rule.

“I told the guys when we sat down that I didn’t want them talking anything about golf,” Gourlay said. “Let’s talk about hockey or basketball or whatever. We sat there for about an hour telling funny stories and staying away from golf all together.”

When play resumed, so did Averett’s solid round. 

Efird recalls how he was playing well before either getting a double- or triple-bogey on No. 15. 

“I remember Coach Gourlay came up,” Efird said. “He's like, ‘How's it going?’ I said, ‘It was going pretty good until that. Before that, I was 2-under. He looks at me and said, ‘I really need you to finish even-par these last two holes.’ I thought, ‘Oh, you got to be kidding me!’”

As Gourlay’s guys began coming into the 18th hole and he heard the scores, it hit him. Hosie shot an even-par 71. Efird finished with a 2-over 73. Johnston was 1-under with a 70. Karjalainen was at 1-over with a 72.

“We might pull this off,” he thought. 

Mommo was the last of the five to make it to the final hole. At some point on the 18th hole, Mommo remembers Gourlay approaching him. He wondered was Gourlay about to offer advice? Was he about to put serious pressure on him entering the final hole with the title team's chances hanging on the shoulders of Mommo?

It turns out it was pretty anticlimactic.

“Coach Gourlay came to me on the last hole, smiling and saying that the team doesn't even need my score. We will win anyway," Mommo recalled back in 2017 prior to his induction into the USA South Hall of Fame.

“He goes, ‘What are you talking about?’ I told him it looked like our highest score was 73,” Gourlay recalled. “And I think if Janne parred, he was going to shoot a 73. He told me, ‘Coach, I’m 2-over. If I shoot a birdie, I’m at 72.’ Sure enough, he goes up there, puts it within six feet and makes the birdie and shoots 1-over. As soon as that putt went into the hole, the tournament was over and I didn’t know what to do with myself.”

Averett had won the NCAA National Championship by five strokes over Wesley, completing a magical 14-shot swing over the final 18 holes. Mommo, meanwhile, finished the 72-hole tournament with a 3-under 281 to win the individual national championship by three strokes over Proshek, who he had tied with for first place a few weeks earlier in Rochester. Karjalainen finished third at 4-over.

“I don't remember any of the shots anymore,” Mommo said. “But of course it is one of the greatest memories in my life overall.”

Karjalainen called the championship was a “dream come true.”

“Just pure happiness to end our college careers on the very top,” Karjalainen said. “That season was just the final chapter that needed to happen.”

What led to the improbable comeback to help the Cougars overcome the huge nine-stroke deficit on the final day? It depends on who you ask.

“We actually wanted and probably needed tough conditions,” Hosie said. “It was cold and rainy. I was this young guy from Canada, so the cold wasn’t going to phase me at all.”

Cold weather also wasn’t a big deal for the Finnish natives Mommo and Karjalainen. 

If you ask Gourlay, he believes that hypnotism session with Ferguson played a factor — at least it did for him.

“During the tournament, I’m as calm as can be,” Gourlay said. “Most of the tournaments I’m all over, trying to find out what’s going on, what everyone is doing. I was just really calm the whole tournament and we had a fun experience.”

Efird said there may have been something to that sports psychology session with Ferguson after all.

“I would say it helped sharpen our mental focus,” he said. “So much of the game is mental. I do remember coming out of it with a much better perspective and vision of what we were trying to do. I would also say that our focus heading into the final round felt very dialed in but with a mental sense of ease.”

Team chemistry also seemed to be a factor in the Cougars’ success all year.

“Everyone got along,” Gourlay remembered. “That was the other thing. The chemistry on the team was unreal. There was no animosity, no negativity, no pointing fingers. They all supported each other and were all good friends and they acted that way. The chemistry is something you can’t coach.”

MAKING GOOD ON A PROMISE & TAKING A SWIM

The story has slight variations depending on who is telling it 20 years later. Whether it was at the beginning of the week or the morning before the final round is irrelevant. At some point, the players made a deal with Gourlay. If they won it all, he had to take a swim in the course’s water driving range.

“We're at the scoreboard to get the trophy,” Efird recalled. “We're all standing around and we looked up and we're like, ‘Don’t forget about that bet we made.’”

Still in his clothes, Gourlay made good on his promise — which also came with an amusing story all these years later.

“I go toward the water and when I get about waist deep, I throw myself in and start swimming,” Gourlay remembered. “There was a wooden platform for the 100-yard marker. My idea was that I was going to swim out there. As soon as I lunge myself to go swimming, I get about halfway there and the wind was blowing into my face. Now I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know if I can make it. I might drown out here.’ Those were the thoughts going through my head. I’m finally on my last breath and I finally make it to the platform in the middle of the lake. I put my arms up to rest and my legs swung underneath me. And I was standing on the ground. The water was only three feet deep all the way and I didn’t know that.”

Once he made it to the platform, Gourlay continued the celebration.

“He swam out to the floating dock and grabbed the flag stick out of the hole and was waving it around like a maniac,” Hosie said. “We were loving it. I’ll never forget it.”

Despite the celebration that ensued, the fact that the Cougars could call themselves “national champions” took a while to sink in, Efird said.

“It all happened so fast,” Efird remembered. “When you were out there playing, you just try to slow down and just play in the moment. But when it finished up, it was very surreal. Because that's what you worked your whole college career to get to that point. And to win it as a team was just super special. … I think maybe like the van ride home, and I remember we had that trophy with us. And it was just like, I couldn't believe that. This was pre social media. I mean, 20 years ago, we had cell phones, but there was no texting or none of that stuff. So I think it was that van ride when it really started to sink as we were leaving. You're like, ‘I can't believe we just did that.’ To come back nine shots and bring home the trophy, it was a really special feeling.”

Winning a national championship is no easy task and can be rare, so when Averett accomplished that feat in 2003, it was a big deal not only for the men’s golf program but for the whole university.

“I felt it brought prestige to all of Averett,” said Averett Deputy Director of Athletics Danny Miller, whose teams won more than 600 games and double-digit conference titles with four NCAA Tournament appearances during his 27 years as head coach of the Averett women’s volleyball from 1995-2021. “I hope one day soon we will get our second national championship in another NCAA sport. When I was coaching volleyball, it inspired me even more to want to achieve success at the next level, and it becomes more achievable when another team has shown that we can do it.” 

The 2003 title still means a lot to the men’s golf program.

“It’s part of our brotherhood,” Director of Golf Ben Potter said. “That group accomplished what our group now wants to accomplish. These guys know their names, have talked with several of them and understand it takes a lot of hard work to do it.”

Averett’s current men’s golf team will certainly have a few alumni cheering for the Cougars this week as they look to write their own chapter at the 2023 NCAA National Championships.

“I follow their results and I follow their Instagram and Golfstat to see how they’re doing,” said Hosie, who talked to the team via Zoom two years ago. “It looks like they have a solid team. They just need to put it all together at the same time, which is all any team needs to do to make a splash on a big stage.

“Just go and have fun,” he added. “They’ve had a solid year. They are supposed to be there because they’ve earned a spot, so go enjoy the moment. … It’s a cool spotlight and an amazing opportunity.”

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

A glance at what members of the championship team are up to these days:

• Janne Mommo: After returning to Finland, he played golf professionally and worked in golf until getting a “normal” job working as a sales manager at Nilan Suomi Oy for the past five years. The company imports and sells Nilan ventilation units and heat pumps.
• Toni Karjalainen: He returned to Finland and played on the pro tour in Europe. Although he doesn’t play professionally anymore, he is still very much involved in the golf scene and is sharing his knowledge from the tours.
• Craig Hosie: Hosie returned to the NCAA Division III National Championships in 2004 as an individual and was named an All-American. However, he elected to transfer to Division I Charleston Southern University to play his final two seasons of collegiate golf. He currently resides in Toronto with his wife and two kids. After working in surgical sales for 15 years, he and his wife a few years ago started RebelStork.com, an online marketplace for baby gear. The company took off in Canada and recently launched in the United States. He also continues to play golf regularly.
• Bret Efird: A native of Virginia, Efird worked for Bridgestone Golf for eight years before being hired at YETI. He resides in Chester, Virginia, with his wife (also an Averett alumna) and family.
• Jeff Johnston: Johnston passed away in May 2017 in Ohio, where he was originally from.
• Head coach Jim Gourlay: Gourlay currently runs his own landscaping company in Charlotte, North Carolina, and referees club soccer on the side.
• Assistant coach Bobby Mitchell: The former PGA and Champions Tour player who assisted with the Averett golf team and had been coaching Mommo in Finland since Mommo was 13 passed away in March 2018 at the age of 75.
• Assistant coach Josh Atwater: In recent years Atwater has been living in North Carolina working as an appraiser. 

Other members of the Averett men’s golf roster during Fall 2002 or Spring 2003:

• Sam Hodges: Played in five events during the 2002-03 season. A 2003 Averett graduate, Hodges is currently a wealth advisor at River Birch Wealth Management in Roanoke, Virginia.
• Chad Anderson: Played in three events during the fall 2002 season before graduating in December. Known more for his career as a baseball player at Averett, Anderson was inducted into the Averett Athletics Hall of Fame in 2020. He has led nearby Chatham High School to two state baseball championships as head coach.
• Frankie Britt: Played in two events in the fall of 2002. After graduating from Averett in 2006, Britt has worked as a general manager for Pilot Flying J Travel Centers in New Jersey.
• Kalle Laukkanen: Was a member of the roster in the spring of 2003 and played in one tournament. He returned to his hometown of Turku, Finland, where he works in insurance.
• Justin Bonnett: Was a member of the roster in fall 2002. As of December 2018, Bonnett was the Director of Golf at Lake Morey Resort in his home state of Vermont.
• Frank Rocovich: Did not compete in any events as a freshman in 2002-03. Rocovich passed away in September 2015.