Lauren Whyte - Women's Golf Coach

Photo by: Austin Perryman/Mississippi State Athletics

Lauren Whyte

Title:
Assistant Women's Golf Coach
Email:
lwhyte@athletics.msstate.edu
Phone:
662-325-2722

Lauren Whyte was hired as an assistant coach at Mississippi State on July 12, 2021. She came to Starkville from Indiana where she spent two seasons as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator.

In her first season with the Bulldogs, State competed in 12 events as a team, placing in the top five four times while earning three top 10 finishes, highlighted by a team championship at the Westbrook Invitational, as well as a trip to NCAA Championships. Mississippi State concluded the year ranked 31^st by both Golf Stat and Golfweek.

The Bulldogs brought two trophies from the same event home for the first time since 2014 as they captured both the team and individual titles in the 2022 Westbrook Invitational.

Mississippi State opened up the spring portion of the 2021-22 season with a bang, stringing together top-four finishes in four straight events (The Ally, Paradise Invitational, Westbrook Invitational and The Gator). The spring portion of the calendar opened with the 2022 Paradise Invitational. As a team, State broke the record for the lowest first round in school history with 15-under par (273). State's 15-under par is also the second-lowest round in team history (18-under par in 2020). MSU finished third shooting 23-under par (841) for the tournament. (23-under par is the second-lowest team score after 54 holes in school history.)

Upon the completion of the regular season, the Bulldogs punched their ticket to the postseason for the 11^th time when they were selected as one of 12 teams chosen to compete at the 2022 Tallahassee Regional as the sixth seed. Down the stretch of the Tallahassee Regional, State scored an even-par on the last six holes as a team to build a five-stroke cushion and secure the fourth-place finish needed to advance to the NCAA Championships.

With the Hoosiers, Whyte oversaw all areas of recruiting including skill evaluation, on-campus visits, scholarship distribution and eligibility requirements. She also organized the program’s home tournaments, ordered equipment and apparel and coordinated team travel.

In the shortened 2019-20 season, the Hoosiers picked up four top-10 finishes. Whyte helped junior Priscilla Schmid earn WGCA All-America Honorable Mention and First Team All-Big Ten honors, as well as a pair of Big Ten Player of the Week accolades after posting a 71.18 average in 11 rounds. Schmid captured her first tournament title at the Landfall Tradition, besting the rest of the field by two strokes.

Prior to her time at Indiana, Whyte served as a graduate assistant coach at Mercer University during the 2018-19 season, where she helped the Bears achieve the best Golfstat team ranking in program history. She also helped guide the Bears to a pair of wins and two more runner-up finishes while helping freshman Carol Pyon to her first collegiate victory and a spot on the Southern Conference All-Freshman team.

Whyte (pronounced “White”) played collegiately at Baylor for two seasons (2014-15, 2015-16) and Denver for two seasons (2016-17, 2017-18). As a freshman, she helped the Bears to their first Big 12 Conference team title by finishing in a tie for 28th. The team then went on to win the NCAA San Antonio Regional, the first regional title in program history, and advanced to the match play portion of the NCAA Championship. Whyte went 1-2 in match play, but her one win was an important one as she defeated Lisa Maguire from Duke on the 24th hole to clinch Baylor’s spot in the championship match against Stanford.

Following her sophomore season at Baylor, Whyte transferred to the University of Denver for her final two years of eligibility. In her two seasons with the Pioneers, she posted a 75.06 scoring average and was the team captain. She helped improve Denver’s Golfstat ranking from 53 to 18 and garnered First and Second Team All-Summit League honors while also winning the 2017 Summit League Championship and finishing eighth individually. The Pioneers won back-to-back team tournament titles in 2017-18.

Her international experience includes being a member of the Scotland National U-18 Girls team for three years and captaining the team at the European Girls Team Championship from 2011-14. She also won the Scottish Girls U-18 Championship in 2012 and participated in the European Young Masters in 2011 and 2012 with Scotland. In 2013, Whyte played for Team GB at Youth Olympic Festival in Australia.

Whyte earned her undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Denver in 2018 and her Masters in Higher Education Leadership in 2019 from Mercer University.