The University of Mississippi Athletics
Men's Golf
- Title:
- Assistant Coach, Men's Golf
- Year at Ole Miss:
- Fifth
- E-mail:
- klellis@olemiss.edu
- Phone:
- 662-816-3531
Kyle Ellis is in his fifth season as an assistant coach with the Ole Miss men's golf team.
Ellis, a four-year letterwinner for the Rebels from 2004-06 and 2008, returned to Oxford after five-year career on the NGA Tour from 2009-13. Ellis posted one career victory at the Chattahoochee/Hospice Classic in 2010 and posted a career-best fifth-place finish on the NGA Tour money list that season. He has also competed in the Web.com PGA Tour Qualifying School event four times and served as a private golf instructor.
Alongside head coach Chris Malloy, Ellis has helped lead Ole Miss to six tournament titles as a team to go along with 13 wins by individual Rebels.
During the 2017-18 campaign, Ellis helped coach the Rebels to another strong season that included some record-breaking performances. Ole Miss captured the Hootie at Bulls Bay thanks to a school record 269 (-19) in the final round, shattering the previous best of 272 that dated back to 2001. Braden Thornberry collected four individual medalist honors to set the new record for career victories (11), while advancing to the NCAA Championships for the second straight season. Thornberry also became the third two-time All-American and the first Ben Hogan finalist in school history. With the help of Ellis’ guidance, the Rebels earned five SEC weekly honors to top the conference; Thornberry captured SEC Golfer of the Week accolades twice, while newcomer Cecil Wegener was the three-time SEC Freshman of the Week. In his first SEC Championship, Wegener placed runner-up in stroke play to lead the Rebels to a spot in the match play portion of the competition. All in all, Ole Miss finished in the top three in nearly half of the tournaments (5 of 12) to hold a national ranking throughout the year. To conclude the season, the Rebels made their third NCAA Regional appearance in four seasons.
In Ellis' third year as assistant coach, Ole Miss captured four tournament victories during the 2016-17 season and earned a berth to a NCAA Regional for the second time in three years. The team won the Franklin American Mortgage Company Intercollegiate at the Grove (Nashville, Tennessee), the AutoTrader.com Collegiate Classic (Atlanta, Georgia) and the Princeville Warrior Invitational (Kauai, Hawaii) during the fall before claiming the Lamkin San Diego Classic (San Diego, California) in the spring. In two of those wins, Ole Miss shot 831 as a team for the second-best tournament score (54 holes) in school history. Following a fourth-place finish at the NCAA Regional in Austin, Texas, the Rebels advanced to the NCAA National Championship for the first time in 16 seasons. There, Thornberry used an 11-under 277 over four rounds to capture the individual national title.
During Ellis' second season on staff, the Rebels claimed their first tournament title since 2012 at the FAU Slomin Autism Invite. Ole Miss posted a team score of 11-under 841, its lowest total since posting a team score of 845 at the 2012 Sam Hall Intercollegiate. Senior Forrest Gamble was honored off the course, as he was named the SEC's 2016 H. Boyd McWhorter Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year award and earned second team CoSIDA Academic All-America honors for the second-consecutive season.
In his first season back in Oxford in 2014-15, Ellis helped guide the Rebels to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2011 with a trip to the NCAA Regional in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Ole Miss finished 12th in the regional, while senior golfer Blake Morris finished in a tie for seventh as an individual. Ellis also helped the Rebels post a ninth-place team finish at the SEC Championships, Ole Miss’ best finish in the conference championships since 2012.
The Senatobia, Mississippi, native ranks seventh all-time in Ole Miss history with 14 career top-10 finishes and posted two career wins in his four seasons. Ellis led the team with a 72.38 stroke average as a senior in 2008 and helped the Rebels advanced to the NCAA Championships East Regional.
Ellis is married to the former Lauren Booth and they have a son, Booth.
