New Kentucky men's golf coach Gator Todd ready to take a bite out of SEC

LEXINGTON — Perched against the wall on the left side of the desk inside Gator Todd's office at the University Club is a picture of two people.

One is Todd's father, Richard Todd. The other is a figure recognizable to nearly any sports fan in the United States: Paul Bryant. Better known by his nickname, "Bear."

Richard Todd was a national championship-winning quarterback for Bryant at Alabama.

Now, Richard's son hopes to bring home a national title with Kentucky's men's golf program. Just like his father's fellow animal-nicknamed coaching idol, Bryant, did six times with the Crimson Tide. And once with the Wildcats, in 1950 (though recognition for that UK team's greatness didn't come until decades later).

The younger Todd, whose first name also is Richard, has gone by Gator his entire life. Not a single person he knows calls him by his given name. The nickname came about when he was a toddler. One of his aunts likened him to a gator.

Todd liked to bite.

The moniker's stuck with him ever since.

"Nobody calls me 'Richard' unless people just don't know me and they see my driver's license," Todd said. "But I think anybody who knows me? It's 'Gator.'"

What he'd like to be called one day in the future, like his father and Bryant before him: "National champion."

First, however, Todd said the Wildcats need to take baby steps.

"If we can advance to match play at an SEC championship this year? I think it'd be a phenomenal goal," he said. "I don't think we've had an All-American in quite a long time, and Alex Goff is on a track to be one of those guys right now."

Men's golf in SEC 'a gauntlet'

Dreams of a national title aside, simply ascending rungs in the conference is a mammoth undertaking in and of itself. In the most recent Division I Golfweek coaches poll, the SEC claimed three of the top six spots and four of the top 10. Five more conference teams round out the top 25. And that doesn't account for two more top-15 schools — Oklahoma and Texas — that will be part of the league beginning next year.

"Those are 11 top-25 teams there. And I think that we can be one of those teams one day," Todd said. "But it's gonna take a little bit of time. It's definitely a gauntlet. It's hard. It's the best conference in men's golf."

The highest-ranked SEC team in those rankings is one Todd is intimately familiar with: No. 2 Vanderbilt. Todd spent the past six seasons with the Commodores under head coach Scott Limbaugh, where the team became a top-10 fixture at the most prestigious event in college golf: the NCAA Championships. At the time of Todd's hire at UK in May, Vandy was the top-ranked team in the nation, led by the country's best amateur, 2022 NCAA individual medalist, Gordon Sargent.

As much success as Todd experienced with the Commodores, he said it was an easy decision to leave — not leave the relationships he'd forged with his players over those years, mind you. But easy because he knew it was time.

And because of Mitch Barnhart.

The day after the position opened, Barnhart, UK's longtime athletics director, called Todd to gauge his interest.

"That meant the world to me. We all want to be wanted, right?" Todd said. "I felt like it was kind of a statement. ... It all happened really fast.

"I was kind of in the mix for another big job at the same time, but I feel like maybe they were dragging their feet a little bit. I felt like Mitch knew exactly what he wanted to do. And thankfully, it was to hire me."

During that phone conversation, Todd said it quickly became clear Barnhart is a kindred spirit. All they care about is competing. And winning.

"This program has been good in the past. It can definitely be done here," Todd said. "My freshman year of college in 2005, Kentucky won the SEC championship. And I remember we played with them in the final round of the SEC championship: us, Georgia and Kentucky."

Todd's path to coaching

Thinking back on his own playing career with the Crimson Tide from 2004 to 2008, Todd acknowledged his limitations. He was "a nice SEC player." But he wasn't a first-team All-American. A can't-miss talent destined for a long, fruitful PGA Tour career.

"I kind of told myself, 'Hey, I'm gonna go give this (professional golf) thing a shot. And as long as I feel like I'm getting better, I'm gonna keep doing it,'" Todd said. "But I also told myself, 'I don't want to be 35 years old trying to make money on the mini tours. That's not how I want to do things.' ... I felt like I was getting better for the first three or four years, but I felt like I kind of had a little two-year stint where maybe I had hit my ceiling.

"After that time, I was ready to do something different."

"Different" took him off the links and into the financial world.

"I hated it," he said. "I was sitting at a desk, and it just wasn't for me."

So he turned to a trio of his closest friends: Harris English, Patton Kizzire and Bobby Wyatt, all professional golfers. They told him the same thing.

"'Gator, I think you'd be a great coach. I think you're good with young people and blah blah,'" Todd recalled them saying. "And I'm just like, 'Yeah, whatever.'"

But the more he thought about it, the less he could dispute their assertion. Finally, when he knew his days in the finance sector were numbered, he visited the NCAA's job board site, scouring for assistant coaching positions. There were three Division I listings: Marquette, Oregon and Virginia.

As much as he wanted the Virginia gig, it recently had been filled. Oregon had just won the national title, so "they probably weren't gonna hire a guy like me," Todd said with a laugh.

That left Marquette.

Mutual connections contacted Marquette coach Steve Bailey on Todd's behalf.

"I went up there for an interview, and luckily he hired me on the spot," Todd said. "That was such a great place to get my feet wet. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, even though I thought I knew everything. And just to be able to work for a guy like Steve Bailey, he was so patient with me. It was just a great place to be."

Other than the winter, that is.

"My interview was in like late July," Todd said. "I'm like, 'This place is great.' It was 75 degrees. And then all of a sudden Oct. 1 hits and I'm like, 'Where am I?'"

For one season, it was nirvana.

In Todd's lone campaign with the Golden Eagles, the program enjoyed immense success. He tutored a pair of All-Big East selections (Oliver Farrell and Matt Murlick) and the league's Freshman of the Year (Matthew Bachmann) as Marquette won the Big East championship. The Golden Eagles also earned the "coaching staff of the year" award.

Then Vanderbilt and Limbaugh came calling.

"It was a huge jump going from a place like Marquette to one of the top programs in the country," Todd said. "The ride at Vandy was incredible. I feel like I learned so much from coach Limbaugh — just how to lead, how to create a winning culture, how to hold guys accountable, how to create a standard."

Relishing 'underdog' role

In the 15 years since Todd graduated from Alabama, the game itself hasn't changed. Golf is golf. What's different is the players teeing it up.

"You've got better athletes playing the game," he said. "There's better technology. I think kids hit it a lot further now. I feel like speed is where the game is going.

"And I feel like when you're out recruiting, it's kind of what you're looking for. We're obviously looking for character and how kids handle themselves — looking at everything, to be honest with you. But I think from a physical standpoint, you're looking for speed."

As an institution, Kentucky sells itself. Todd said it reminds him of growing up in Florence, Alabama. The flagship university — particularly the Crimson Tide football program — is the state's most popular school. It's the same way with the Wildcats in the Bluegrass State.

"This state bleeds blue," Todd said. "So for us recruiting, this state is going to be very, very important. And that was one of the things that was so attractive to me about this job was just how big of a presence this university has and how special it is to a lot of people.

"It's not just golf and getting to the Tour and molding you (here). It's more about, if you go somewhere, it's not a four-year decision. It's a 40-year decision."

While his players are in Lexington, Todd doesn't want them focused on results. Those will come in time. It's a three-step process.

"Habits lead to actions," he said, "and the actions lead to outcomes."

The extraordinary exploits of his Vanderbilt tenure are what Todd is aiming for at UK. The SEC's seemingly endless depth, top to bottom, means the odds are stacked against the Wildcats.

Exactly how Todd likes it.

"I've always been, and liked being, an underdog. … And I feel like this program, it's a little bit of an underdog in this conference," he said. "And I feel like that fits me."

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky men's golf: Gator Todd ready to build program in powerful SEC