It didn’t take Jason Owen long to take the Cal State Monterey Bay men’s golf program to the top of the NCAA Division II world. Owen led the Otters to an NCAA title in his third season and has consistently had the Otter ranked amongst the nation’s elite in his 10+ seasons in Seaside. He has served as CSUMB’s head men’s golf coach (since August 2008) and director of golf (since July 2011).

Through the 2017–18 season CSUMB team has appeared in all seven NCAA Super Regional tournaments and five National Championships. In his third season as head coach, Owen and his student-athletes brought CSUMB its first and only NCAA Division II National Championship, ultimately capping off a string of six consecutive tournament victories. Owen was named the 2011 Division II National Coach of the Year, the 2011 and 2013 All-West Region Coach of the Year, and the 2011 and 2014 CCAA Conference Coach of the Year.

During his tenure the CSUMB team has won a total of 30 tournaments including three CCAA conference championships where the team twice set, and currently hold, the team scoring record at 19 under par. The Otters have advanced to 10 NCAA Super Regionals—including three Super Regional championships—and advanced to the NCAA National Championship Tournament six times. and a total of 10 team members have combined for 24 individual tournament wins, including six CCAA Conference individual champions and the 2011 and 2015 NCAA Central/West Super Regional individual medalists.

Phil Rowe, an assistant or associate head coach at UNLV the past six seasons, was selected as head men’s coach of the Swanson Cal Poly Golf Program, effective June 1, 2020.

Rowe was an assistant coach with the Rebels in 2014 and was promoted to associate head coach in June 2017.

“We are delighted to welcome Phil Rowe into the Mustang Family,” said Cal Poly director of athletics Don Oberhelman. “When we began the search, we engaged with our community and our student-athletes to determine what our needs would be and what characteristics we were looking for that would best serve our university.

“Among those are the ability to recruit to a high-achieving academic university, technical knowledge of the golf swing and teaching, ability to interpret feedback derived from golf technology, fundraising, access to tournaments, teach course management, mentorship, leadership, and a disciplined approach to our competitiveness,” Oberhelman added.