Four coaches, led by Auburn's Clinard, join GCAA Hall of Fame

The Golf Coaches Association of America has picked four men for its 2026 Hall of Fame class, and Auburn's Nick Clinard is the most decorated active coach among them. The association named the class Thursday. Clinard, Pat Goss, Jake Harrington and Jamie Howell will be inducted Monday, Dec. 7, at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

Between them the four cover the SEC, the Big Ten and more than two decades of junior college golf.

What Clinard has built at Auburn

Clinard is entering his 18th season running the Auburn men's program, which has won two of the past three NCAA Championships. Since he was hired, the Tigers have taken 64 tournament titles — the most in the SEC over that stretch — and produced 55 individual medalists. His 74 career team wins are the most of any active Division I men's coach and rank eighth in the history of the division. Golfweek named him its Coach of the Year for the 2023-24 season.

Goss ran Northwestern's men's program from 1996 to 2014, then served as its director of golf and player development through 2025. His Wildcats won 30 team tournaments and 37 individual titles, took four Big Ten Championships and reached seven NCAA Championships.

Harrington made his name in junior college golf, winning 41 team tournaments in six seasons at South Mountain Community College along with NJCAA Division II national titles in 2010, 2012 and 2013. He is now the head men's coach at New Mexico, after ten seasons at Little Rock.

Howell begins his 25th year at Eastern Florida State College, where the Titans have reached the NJCAA Division I National Championship in all 24 of his seasons, won 58 team events and sent more than 80 players on to four-year schools on golf money.

The GCAA started inducting coaches in 1980 and the hall now numbers more than 170. Candidates are nominated by their peers, then selected by a committee that weighs what a coach has given to players and to the game as much as the win column.

Golf in Las Vegas around the Clinard induction

The ceremony puts the college coaching world in Las Vegas on a Monday in December, a workable golf trip for anyone flying in for it. Public tee times in the city are thinner on LoopGolf than the Strip's reputation suggests.

Of the Las Vegas courses we track, Palm Valley Golf Course is the one currently bookable, priced from $50 to about $85, with open times on seven of the next 14 days. TPC Las Vegas and Bali Hai are listed but are not taking bookings through us right now.