Stewart Murray Alexander (born February 20, 1953), nicknamed Buddy Alexander, is an American former college

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

coach and amateur golfer. Alexander is the former head coach of the

Florida Gators men's golf The Florida Gators men's golf team represents the University of Florida in the sport of golf. The Gators compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Southeastern Conference (SEC). They play their home ...

team. He is best known for coaching the Gators to

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athlete, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic sports, ...

(NCAA) Division I tournament championships in 1993 and 2001.

Playing career

During his collegiate playing career at

Georgia Southern University Georgia Southern University (GS or Georgia Southern) is a public research university in the U.S. state of Georgia. The flagship campus is in Statesboro, and other locations include the Armstrong Campus in Savannah and the Liberty Campus in Hine ...

, Alexander was recognized as an All-American in 1974 and 1975.GatorZone.com, Men's Golf, Coaching & Support Staff
Buddy Alexander
. Retrieved May 22, 2011. After his graduation from Georgia Southern, he continued to play competitive golf as an amateur, and notably won the 1976

Azalea Invitational The Azalea Invitational is an annual amateur golf tournament. It has been played since 1946 at the Country Club of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. Several past champions have subsequently gained membership to the PGA Tour, including m ...

, the 1977

Eastern Amateur The Eastern Amateur is an annual amateur golf tournament. It has been played at Elizabeth Manor Golf and Country Club in Portsmouth, Virginia Portsmouth is an independent city in southeast Virginia and across the Elizabeth River from Norfolk. ...

, and the 1986 U.S. Amateur Championship. He was a member of the

1986 Eisenhower Trophy The 1986 Eisenhower Trophy took place 22 to 25 October at the Lagunita Country Club in Caracas, Venezuela. It was the 15th World Amateur Team Championship for the Eisenhower Trophy. The tournament was a 72-hole stroke play team event with 39 four- ...

team and the

1987 Walker Cup The 1987 Walker Cup, the 31st Walker Cup Match, was played on 27 and 28 May 1987, on the Old course at Sunningdale Golf Club, Sunningdale, Berkshire, England. The event was won by the United States 16½ to 7½, their eighth successive win. The ma ...

team.

Results in major championships

*''Note: Alexander only played in the Masters and the U.S. Open.'' * *CUT = missed the half-way cut

U.S. national team appearances

Amateur *

Eisenhower Trophy The Eisenhower Trophy (World Men's Amateur Team Championships) is the biennial World Amateur Team Championship for men organized by the International Golf Federation. Since the tournament was first played in 1958, it is named after Dwight D. Eise ...

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 **Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal enter ...

Walker Cup The Walker Cup is a golf trophy contested in odd-numbered years by leading male amateur golfers in two teams: United States, and Great Britain and Ireland. The official name is the Walker Cup Match (not "Matches" as in Ryder Cup Matches). It is ...

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airpor ...

(winners)

Coaching career

Alexander served as the Florida Gators men's golf head coach from January 1988 to April 2014. Alexander's Gators teams have won two

(NCAA) tournament championships in 1993 and 2001. During the 2001 NCAA tournament, Alexander also coached team captain Nick Gilliam to an individual NCAA golf championship, only the second in the history of the Gators golf program. His teams have also won eight

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...

(SEC) team championships (1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1999, 2003, 2011), and his players have won eight SEC individual titles, in his twenty-two seasons as the Gators' coach.SECSports.com, SEC Record Book
Men's Golf
Retrieved August 1, 2009 Alexander previously coached the men's and women's golf teams at

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

(LSU) from 1983 to 1987, and the men's golf team at

from 1977 to 1980. Alexander became the head golf coach at his alma mater, Georgia Southern, in 1977, only two years after his graduation. As the LSU men's and women's golf head coach, Alexander's teams won two SEC team titles (1986, 1987), and his LSU players won two SEC individual titles. In thirty-three years as a head coach, Alexander's teams finished among the top ten in the NCAA tournament fifteen times. His teams amassed seventy-two tournament victories, and thirty-one of his players earned All-American honors. The

Golf Coaches Association of America The Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) is a non-profit organization that is a professional association of men’s collegiate golf coaches. It was founded in 1958, and is located on 1225 West Main Street in Norman, Oklahoma. The GCAA has ...

(GCAA) honored him as its National Coach of the Year three times (1993, 2001 and 2004), and the GCAA inducted him into its Coaches Hall of Fame in 2001, joining former Gators coach

Buster Bishop Bernays Emery "Buster" Bishop (1920 – November 19, 2004) was an American college golf coach. Bishop was best known for leading the Florida Gators men's golf team of the University of Florida to National Collegiate Athletic Association ( ...

. The SEC recognized him seven times as its Coach of the Year (1986, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1999, 2003, 2004). As of 2010, Alexander had coached thirty-three future professional golfers as collegians, including eighteen at Florida. In 2005, Alexander was selected to coach the U.S. national amateur team in

Palmer Cup The Arnold Palmer Cup is an annual team golf competition for college/university golfers. From 2018 it has been contested between a United States team and an International team representing the rest of the world. The teams consist of 12 men and 12 ...

competition. In 2013, Alexander's Gator golfers finished fourth of fourteen teams in the SEC championship tournament in

Sea Island, Georgia Sea Island is a privately owned, unincorporated area of Glynn County, Georgia, and is part of the Golden Isles of Georgia, which include St. Simons Island, Jekyll Island, Little St. Simons Island, and the mainland city of Brunswick. The well-vis ...

, and twenty-fifth of thirty invited teams at the NCAA Tournament in

Woodstock, Georgia Woodstock is a city in Cherokee County, Georgia, United States. The population was 33,039 as of 2019 according to the US Census Bureau. Originally a stop on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, Woodstock is part of the Atlanta metropolitan are ...

Personal

Alexander was born in

St. Petersburg, Florida St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 258,308, making it the fifth-most populous city in Florida and the second-largest city in the Tampa Bay Area, after Tampa. It is the ...

. He graduated from Georgia Southern University with

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in recreation in 1975, and again with a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in educational administration in 1980. His father,

Skip Alexander Stewart Murray "Skip" Alexander, Jr. (August 6, 1918 – October 24, 1997) was an American collegiate and professional golfer. Alexander was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but was raised in Durham, North Carolina. He attended Duke Univer ...

, was a former Duke University golf stand-out and

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also k ...

player. Alexander's wife, Joan, previously worked as a PGA Tour media official. Alexander has a daughter, Cortnee, and a son, Tyson. Tyson played for his father's Gators golf from 2006 to 2010, and qualified for the U.S. Open, like his father and grandfather before him, in 2009. Another Alexander gets his Open shot
" GatorCountry.com (June 11, 2009). Retrieved August 1, 2009. Tyson turned pro in 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexander, Buddy American male golfers Amateur golfers Florida Gators men's golf coaches LSU Tigers golf coaches LSU Lady Tigers golf coaches Sportspeople from Gainesville, Florida Sportspeople from St. Petersburg, Florida 1953 births Living people