Bio

Steve Wilson

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (1988-1990) / Golf
D'Iberville, Mississippi

Steve Wilson, one of Gulf Coast standout golfers, began at the Perkinston Campus in 1989 under golf coach Charles Cooper. A year later, he and fellow Bulldog golfers won the Mississippi Association of Junior and Community Colleges/NJCAA Region 23 golf championship and then played in the National Junior College Athletic Association Tournament. That trip represented the first time that Gulf Coast had an entire golf team represent the college at nationals. Wilson, along with Todd Donheiser, David Lee, Wyatt Boyette and John Boothby, took fifth place in the event.

“We won the state tournament at Hickory Hills in Gautier, which is now called Mississippi National,” Wilson says. “At that time, I wasn’t that good. If I broke 80, I was doing well, so it was definitely a big tournament at that point.” Wilson, a D’Iberville native who went to high school at St Martin, earned NJCAA All-American Second Team at the national event. “There are so many different levels of golf,” he adds. “That experience definitely made me feel more confident.”

Since his time at Gulf Coast, Wilson has won more than 13 local and regional golf tournaments and has competed at the professional level on several occasions. Most recently, Wilson made an improbable run at the 2008 United States Golf Association Mid-Amateur championship in early September. The first Mississippian to ever win this event, he won six matches in five days, with the finale being a win over Todd Mitchell 5 and 4 in the final match at the 7,004-yard Milwaukee Country Club. Wilson says, “I qualified for the Mid-Am at Annandale Country Club in Madison. From there we played two rounds of two different courses in Milwaukee, and out of 264 golfers, they took the best 64 scores, and those players began match play.”

This win wasn’t just a trip to the Midwest full of good golf and nice memories. By winning the U.S. Mid-Amateur, Wilson qualified for the PGA tour event in Mississippi (The Viking Classic). The big prize was an invitation to play in the 2009 Masters in Augusta, Ga. Many in South Mississippi are calling this the biggest news story about an amateur golfer in Coast history.

“I really didn’t play that well during the first few matches,” Wilson says. “But I kept running into golfers who were playing worse than I was. So with each win, I got more confidence. It’s like hitting the lottery for me. I’ve never believed I could win anything this big. At the same time, I knew it was possible. I really didn’t expect to win. I haven’t been playing all that well this year. I was actually thinking about making this my last year of competitive golf.”

So much for that. Wilson, in the middle of a historic run, says there’s still a Bulldog connection with his game: Charles Cooper. “I still call Coach Cooper all the time for swing advice and other tips,” he says. “He recently worked with me on my putting, and I feel that I feel like that was a pretty big factor in my recent success.”