Cole Buck - Associate Head Coach - Staff Directory

Staff Directory

Cole Buck

Title:
Associate Head Coach
Email:

Cole Buck is in his third season as associate head coach for the TCU men’s golf team.

Buck helped lead TCU back to postseason play with an NCAA Regional appearance in 2025.

In the 2023-24 season, Buck coached Gustav Frimodt to the Big 12 Co-Championship as well as All-Big 12 and Third Team All-America honors. Frimodt finished the season with the second-best scoring average in program history.

Buck, who played at TCU and graduated in 2017, arrived in Fort Worth in 2023 after two and a half seasons as the assistant coach at Stanford under head coach Conrad Ray.

While at Stanford from 2020-23, Buck coached Michael Thorbjornsen, Barclay Brown and Karl Vilips to All-America honors. Thorbjornsen, who won the 2023 Pac 12 Conference Championship, was the 2023 Pac-12 Golfer of the Year, a finalist for the Haskins Award and Ben Hogan Award, and No. 1 in the 2022 PGA Tour University rankings. His 69.26 scoring average was the second best in program history.

During the 2022-23 season, Buck helped the Cardinal win the Pac-12 Championships, finish second at the Las Vegas Regional and finished tied for eighth at the NCAA Championships, just missing out on advancing to match play. Stanford also won the Fighting Illini Invitational and the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate.

In the 2021-22 season, Buck helped the Cardinal win the Colonial Collegiate Invitational in Fort Worth. Stanford had three more runner-up finishes that season and a total of seven Top 5s. Stanford advanced to the NCAA Championships after a second-place finish at the Stockton Regional. That season, Henry Shimp was named Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

Prior to Stanford, Buck served as the assistant coach at Lipscomb (2019-20) and was the head coach at Wagner (2017-19).

In the 2019-20 season, Buck helped Lipscomb finish in the top five in five out of seven events played. He coached Nolan Ray to honorable mention All-America honors in a year where he was a three-time Atlantic Sun Player of the Week. Ray finished the season with the second lowest scoring average in team history.

Buck also helped Paul Swindell to three top five finishes in five tournaments played and ended with the second-lowest scoring average in the ASUN behind Nolan.

While at Wagner, Buck served as the first graduate assistant head coach in program history. He coached three players to top three individual finishes and Nicked Mushaffen to a career-best 10^th place finish at the NEC Championship.

Buck played for TCU during the 2013-14 season under Bill Montigel. Following his playing career, he served as head men’s and women’s junior varsity golf coach and varsity assistant coach at Trinity Valley High School in Fort Worth. He also spent time at TCU as a coaching intern with strength and conditioning.

Buck spent his final three years of high school at the prestigious Jim McLean Golf Academy in Arlington, Texas. Buck has also worked with the AJGA, served as Kids Across America Director of Golf at Payne Stewart Memorial Center, and also served as a Mackenzie Tour caddy in 2018.

Buck and his wife, Anna, were married in 2022 and have a son, William, who was born in 2024.