The University of Mississippi Athletics
Bortis Brings Military Mindset to Rebel Golf
11/6/2019 | Men's Golf
Assistant Coach Returns to Golf After Eight Years in The Marines
This story originally appeared in the November 9, 2019 issue of Rebel: The Official Magazine of Ole Miss Football Gameday.
Matt Bortis was named assistant coach of Ole Miss Men's Golf on July 15, 2019 by head coach Chris Malloy. Bortis joined the Rebel program after coaching Stanford to a national championship this past season, his first season coaching college golf.
He was a coach on the rise, and Malloy knew he hired a guy who could come in on day one and bring a wealth of experience, not only about the game of golf, but on leadership, team development and accountability.
Bortis played collegiately at Arkansas for three seasons, twice earning All-SEC accolades. He transferred to Texas for his senior year in 2007, finished 62nd in the NCAA Championships, and secured PING All-American honorable mention. What next?
Growing up an only child playing golf, it fostered a certain mentality and comfortability that he realized, at the end of his college golf career, was not the person he wanted to be. A mentor of Bortis' at the University of Texas gave him the idea of joining the Marine Corps and that caught his attention.
When he was younger, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up other than a professional golfer, his answer was always a fighter pilot like Tom Cruise in Top Gun, which was initially what Bortis' mentor encouraged him to be. Flight school ended up being a long path, and Bortis wasn't willing to wait. He wanted something now.
Bortis was driven to do special operations because he saw everything he wanted to get better at in his recruiting officer. Specials operations would enable him to get better at things personally and it would be a new challenge for Bortis to push himself towards achieving. The things he wanted to get better at Bortis knew he couldn't do on his own, like being selfless and understanding the importance of teamwork.
In 2010, Bortis joined the Marines and served in multiple leadership roles over the next eight years.
"I walked into a community where it's all about the team. It's all based on serving something that's not about you, and my whole life before I had been doing the opposite. It was really hard for me to adjust to that," Bortis said.
As platoon commander, Bortis was in charge of 44 Marines in daily operations and training before they were deployed. They received the "Top Squad" award for tactical proficiency, knowledge and physical fitness.
"Once I got to know those guys, and we spent as much time as we did together through the work we did before we even deploy, I fell in love with it," Bortis said. "I fell in love with the fact that I was responsible for them, and we felt like a family before we even left. It really made me realize that no matter what I could do personally, it was never going to be as good as doing something like that with a team. That was the biggest thing that made me realize it's not about me. All the enjoyment I had playing golf, at the end of the day when I achieved something it was just me. It was good, but never as good as when I achieved something with the group of guys I loved and cared so much about."
Shortly after returning from his first deployment, Bortis was chosen to serve as the company executive officer where he was responsible for the development and implementation of a 10-month training plan for more than 175 Infantry Marines.
Upon completion of his service as the company executive officer, Bortis was selected to attend Assessment and Selection for the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) in 2014. He was selected as one of 35 candidates out of 197 for a special operations Individual Training Course in North Carolina.
During his stretch as a team commander, Bortis was responsible for the development and implementation of a new counter terrorism initiative, expanding the partnership of U.S. Special Operations with Partner Nation Forces to help stem the growth of I.S.I.S in the region.
Upon leaving the Marines, Bortis needed to figure out what was next. Most people who get out Special Operations go into the business world or into the CIA or FBI. But for Bortis, he wanted to go back to the game he loved.
"I wanted to be able to have a chance to teach these guys a lot of the things that I had learned in the Marines, and I felt like if I had somebody like that in my career when I was playing, I would've been way better. I'm able to stay in the team atmosphere and still become a mentor."
Bortis was hired as assistant men's golf coach at Stanford University in October of 2018 and made an immediate impact on and off the course.
It was a Hollywood movie script when Bortis helped lead the Cardinal to a NCAA National Championship in his first season as an assistant golf coach. Stanford defeated Bortis' former team, the Texas Longhorns, at his former club, Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Bortis has just one fall season under his belt at Ole Miss, but he hopes he's made an impact on the guys already, not just on the game of golf but the team aspect of it as well.
He spends a lot of his time working with the players on the attitude they need to have on and off the course. Golf is a cruel game sometimes, and he helps the players think about certain situations with unforeseen circumstances, teaching them to react and adapt to whatever might happen on the course.
"Adjusting mindsets is a process that takes far longer than any swing change," Bortis said. "Setting the standards and holding guys to those standards, making sure they take extreme ownership of everything that they do and fail to do, goes a lot further."
Ole Miss placed in the top-four in four of five events this fall, including two runner-up finishes, the last coming at the Hoakalei Country Club Invitational in Hawaii in late October. The Rebels, after a winter hiatus, return to competition Feb. 16-18 for the Puerto Rico Classic.
Matt Bortis was named assistant coach of Ole Miss Men's Golf on July 15, 2019 by head coach Chris Malloy. Bortis joined the Rebel program after coaching Stanford to a national championship this past season, his first season coaching college golf.
He was a coach on the rise, and Malloy knew he hired a guy who could come in on day one and bring a wealth of experience, not only about the game of golf, but on leadership, team development and accountability.
Bortis played collegiately at Arkansas for three seasons, twice earning All-SEC accolades. He transferred to Texas for his senior year in 2007, finished 62nd in the NCAA Championships, and secured PING All-American honorable mention. What next?
Growing up an only child playing golf, it fostered a certain mentality and comfortability that he realized, at the end of his college golf career, was not the person he wanted to be. A mentor of Bortis' at the University of Texas gave him the idea of joining the Marine Corps and that caught his attention.
When he was younger, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up other than a professional golfer, his answer was always a fighter pilot like Tom Cruise in Top Gun, which was initially what Bortis' mentor encouraged him to be. Flight school ended up being a long path, and Bortis wasn't willing to wait. He wanted something now.
Bortis was driven to do special operations because he saw everything he wanted to get better at in his recruiting officer. Specials operations would enable him to get better at things personally and it would be a new challenge for Bortis to push himself towards achieving. The things he wanted to get better at Bortis knew he couldn't do on his own, like being selfless and understanding the importance of teamwork.
In 2010, Bortis joined the Marines and served in multiple leadership roles over the next eight years.
"I walked into a community where it's all about the team. It's all based on serving something that's not about you, and my whole life before I had been doing the opposite. It was really hard for me to adjust to that," Bortis said.
As platoon commander, Bortis was in charge of 44 Marines in daily operations and training before they were deployed. They received the "Top Squad" award for tactical proficiency, knowledge and physical fitness.
"Once I got to know those guys, and we spent as much time as we did together through the work we did before we even deploy, I fell in love with it," Bortis said. "I fell in love with the fact that I was responsible for them, and we felt like a family before we even left. It really made me realize that no matter what I could do personally, it was never going to be as good as doing something like that with a team. That was the biggest thing that made me realize it's not about me. All the enjoyment I had playing golf, at the end of the day when I achieved something it was just me. It was good, but never as good as when I achieved something with the group of guys I loved and cared so much about."
Shortly after returning from his first deployment, Bortis was chosen to serve as the company executive officer where he was responsible for the development and implementation of a 10-month training plan for more than 175 Infantry Marines.
Upon completion of his service as the company executive officer, Bortis was selected to attend Assessment and Selection for the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) in 2014. He was selected as one of 35 candidates out of 197 for a special operations Individual Training Course in North Carolina.
During his stretch as a team commander, Bortis was responsible for the development and implementation of a new counter terrorism initiative, expanding the partnership of U.S. Special Operations with Partner Nation Forces to help stem the growth of I.S.I.S in the region.
Upon leaving the Marines, Bortis needed to figure out what was next. Most people who get out Special Operations go into the business world or into the CIA or FBI. But for Bortis, he wanted to go back to the game he loved.
"I wanted to be able to have a chance to teach these guys a lot of the things that I had learned in the Marines, and I felt like if I had somebody like that in my career when I was playing, I would've been way better. I'm able to stay in the team atmosphere and still become a mentor."
Bortis was hired as assistant men's golf coach at Stanford University in October of 2018 and made an immediate impact on and off the course.
It was a Hollywood movie script when Bortis helped lead the Cardinal to a NCAA National Championship in his first season as an assistant golf coach. Stanford defeated Bortis' former team, the Texas Longhorns, at his former club, Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Bortis has just one fall season under his belt at Ole Miss, but he hopes he's made an impact on the guys already, not just on the game of golf but the team aspect of it as well.
He spends a lot of his time working with the players on the attitude they need to have on and off the course. Golf is a cruel game sometimes, and he helps the players think about certain situations with unforeseen circumstances, teaching them to react and adapt to whatever might happen on the course.
"Adjusting mindsets is a process that takes far longer than any swing change," Bortis said. "Setting the standards and holding guys to those standards, making sure they take extreme ownership of everything that they do and fail to do, goes a lot further."
Ole Miss placed in the top-four in four of five events this fall, including two runner-up finishes, the last coming at the Hoakalei Country Club Invitational in Hawaii in late October. The Rebels, after a winter hiatus, return to competition Feb. 16-18 for the Puerto Rico Classic.
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