Thomas F. Roush, M.D. and Family Men’s Golf Head Coach Scott Limbaugh has lifted the Vanderbilt men’s golf program to unprecedented heights since his appointment prior to the 2012-13 season.
The four-time SEC Coach of the Year, Limbaugh has led the Commodores to three SEC championships—the most in the conference during his tenure. Recipient of the 2017 Dave Williams Award winner as national coach of the year and a multiple-time finalist, his teams have reached 11 consecutive NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships. In 2022, Gordon Sargent became the first Vanderbilt golfer to win an individual NCAA championship.
A renowned recruiter, innovator and mentor, he has helped some of the best and brightest achieve collegiate excellence and prepare for professional careers.
During Limbaugh’s tenure, an SEC-leading five Commodores have been honored as SEC Men’s Golf Player of the Year: Hunter Stewart (2015), Theo Humphrey (2018), Will Gordon (2019), John Augenstein (2020) and Sargent (2023). Augenstein and Sargent were also honored as SEC Freshman of the Year in 2017 and 2022, respectively.
In all, Limbaugh’s Commodores have garnered 19 First Team All-SEC honors and more than 30 All-SEC honors through the 2024-25 season. By comparison, Vanderbilt had just 10 All-SEC selections, including one first-team honoree, prior to Limbaugh’s arrival.
Vanderbilt golfers have been no less prolific in amassing national honors. Limbaugh has coached 10 GCAA PING First Team All-Americans in his time at Vanderbilt, including two in the same season in 2022 (Sargent and Cole Sherwood). More than 20 Commodores have received GCAA All-America or Honorable Mention recognition through the 2023-24 season.
In 2022, Sargent became the first Vanderbilt golfer to win the Phil Mickelson Outstanding Freshman Award, joining a winner’s list that includes Patrick Cantlay, Rickie Fowler, Scottie Scheffler and Justin Thomas.
Limbaugh has coached multiple finalists for the Haskins and Ben Hogan Awards, presented annually to the nation’s top collegiate golfer, as well as the Byron Nelson Award, honoring the outstanding Division I, II, III, or NAIA scholar-athlete of the year.
Four of Limbaugh’s players have participated in a PGA Tour event while still a member of the Commodores: Hunter Stewart in 2014 at the RBC Heritage, Matthias Schwab at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in 2017, John Augenstein at the 2019 RBC Heritage, and Sargent at the Rocket Mortgage Classic and John Deere Classic in 2023. Sargent also competed in the 2023 Masters and 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2.
Fostering a collaborative environment and emphasizing team success has proved instrumental in helping individuals reach their full potential. Prior to Limbaugh’s arrival, Vanderbilt had reached the NCAA Championship on three occasions and had never won an NCAA regional. He’s made both regular additions to the schedule.
In addition to qualifying for 11 consecutive NCAA Championships (the 2020 event was canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic) and earning the top overall seed in 2023, the Commodores have advanced to the match play portion on seven occasions. All seven match-play appearances have come since 2015, the most in the nation during that span. Vanderbilt reached the semifinals (Final Four) in 2017, 2019 and 2022, as well as the quarterfinals (Elite Eight) in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2021 and 2024.
In 2017 and 2022, the Commodores topped stroke play in the NCAA Championship.
En route to the 2021 NCAA Championship, and as part of a 133-2 record that marked one of the best runs in collegiate golf history, the Commodores won the NCAA Kingston Regional at the Golf Club of Tennessee. It was the program’s first regional championship.
They were just getting started, winning the 2022 Palm Beach Regional at PGA National and 2024 West Lafayette Regional at Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex.
Limbaugh’s Commodores have also made a habit of winning SEC trophies at a time when that is more difficult than ever.
The Commodores added a degree of difficulty to winning their first SEC championship in 2017, topping the stroke play leaderboard and then defeating Texas A&M in match play to earn the title in the first year of the current format.
The Commodores won back-to-back conference titles in 2021-22, again sweeping the stroke and match play components in 2022. They advanced to back-to-back SEC finals in 2023-24, giving them five finals appearances in the first seven years of the current format.
Limbaugh’s Commodores have won 40 team tournaments—the most by a head coach in Vanderbilt golf history. His teams are also responsible for the entirety of the top 10 scoring seasons in program history, while his golfers are individually responsible for the top 10 single-season and career scoring records.
For his efforts, Limbaugh was honored as SEC Coach of the Year in 2017, 2019 and 2021-22. He is one of just four SEC coaches since 1995 to win the honor in back-to-back years.
Nor did it take long for the wider golfing world to recognize what Limbaugh was building. In 2015, after just his third season but also back-to-back trips to the NCAA Championship, he was a finalist for the Dave Williams Award as the nation’s best men’s golf head coach. Two years later, after winning the SEC title and reaching the Final Four, he became the first Vanderbilt coach to win the award. He was recognized as a finalist again in 2022 and 2023.
He is a four-time GCAA Southeast Region Coach of the Year.
Limbaugh was selected as a co-head coach of the 2019 United States Palmer Cup Team, where he coached a record-tying three Commodores (John Augenstein, Will Gordon, Patrick Martin).
True to Vanderbilt’s mission, Limbaugh’s student-athletes have been honored 25 times on the GCAA All-Scholar team. He has also coached three of the four student-athletes in program history to win SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year: Theo Humphrey (2018), Cole Sherwood (2024) and Wells Williams (2025). In all, more than 80 of Limbaugh’s Commodores earned SEC All-Academic honors through the 2023-24 season.
Prior to his arrival in Nashville, Limbaugh spent five seasons as Alabama’s recruiting coordinator and assistant coach. During his tenure in Tuscaloosa, the Crimson Tide finished as NCAA runners-up (2012) and won two SEC championships (2008, 2012) and two NCAA East Regionals (2009, 2012). Alabama played in four NCAA Championships and won 20 team tournament titles with Limbaugh on staff. He notably also recruited and helped mentor current PGA player and two-time major winner Justin Thomas.
A 2003 Huntingdon College (Alabama) graduate, Limbaugh was elevated to head coach at his alma mater after one season as an assistant. As a student-athlete, he played for Huntingdon for two seasons after helping lead Central Alabama Community College to two NCAA Junior College national championships. Limbaugh was a co-captain on Central Alabama’s 2000 national championship team and captained Huntingdon in 2002.
A Childersburg, Alabama, native, Limbaugh and his wife Kate have two daughters, Malley and Annie, and one son, Thomas.
What Others Say About Limbaugh
“Scott Limbaugh has an infectious attitude and is a tireless recruiter. I look forward to getting to know him even better and know he is the coach that will bring Vanderbilt golf back to relevance on the national level. We have found the right man for the job.”
— Brandt Snedeker, Vanderbilt All-American, PGA Tour, Search Committee Member
“In my career, we’ve played with Alabama, and I think with coach Limbaugh you’re getting a guy with a lot of energy who’s going to put 110 percent behind the program. That type of energy is what really is going to benefit our program and take it to where we all want it to go. With coach Limbaugh, he’s going to bring out every ounce of potential in all of the guys.”
– Adam Hofmann, Vanderbilt Men’s Golfer, Class of 2012
“Coach Limbaugh has been an unbelievable influence on me and our team. He is a great coach. He brings so much energy to his job and that translates to our team. Coach always had a positive approach to everything we did. He is going to be missed, but all of us are very happy for the opportunity that he is getting at Vanderbilt. He is so driven and determined and I think he will do a great job in Nashville.”
– Justin Thomas, 2012 SEC Freshman and Player of the Year, University of Alabama