Kevin Jennings - Men's Golf Coach - Central Michigan University Athletics

Kevin Jennings

Title:
Head Coach
E-Mail Address:
jenni5k@cmich.edu
Phone:
(989) 774-2128
Year at CMU:
3rd year at CMU
Hometown:
Benton Harbor, Mich.
Alma Mater/Year:
Mississippi Valley State

Kevin Jennings has built a solid foundation for the Central Michigan men’s golf program, resurrecting it in 2022-23 after a 37-year hiatus.
A Benton Harbor, Mich. native, Jennings returned to his home state and delivered immediate results, guiding the Chippewas in 2023 to a sixth-place finish in the nine-team Mid-American Conference Championship, a solid finish for a first-year program featuring four freshmen starters.
The Chippewas have excelled academically under Jennings, placing three student-athletes on the Academic All-Mid-American Conference Team in each of the past two seasons.
The program’s steady ascension under Jennings has continued, and the Chippewas came quickly out of the chute in the 2025-26 season at the Joe Feaganes Invitational in Huntington, W. Va., the first event of the year. It was there that the Chippewas set program 18-, 36- and 54-hole scoring records with scores of 279, 572 and 851, respectively.
Keith Hunter led CMU with a 7-under par 206 – CMU records for aggregate score and score in relation to par -- at the Feaganes Invitational. He tied for fifth in the 93-player field.
The Chippewas’ Philippe Yturralde set a program record for aggregate score when he fired a blistering 64 (6-under par) in the Chippewas’ second tournament of the 2025-26 season, the Earl Yestingmeier Invitational at Delaware Country Club in Muncie, Ind.
Yturralde followed his 64 with a 68 and, combined with his opening-round 71, finished with a 7-under 203, tying Hunter’s Chippewa record for score in relation to par and breaking the latter’s 11-day-old program best for aggregate score.
Yturralde finished tied for sixth in the 81-player field at the Yestingmeier and that finish, coupled with a T7 by Hunter in the final event of the fall, the Fripp Island Intercollegiate, gave the Chippewas three individual top 10s in four stroke-play events in the fall portion of the schedule.
In four fall events in 2025, Chippewa golfers recorded 17 rounds of even par or better, and four times CMU golfers finished under par for a tournament.
The highlights weren’t limited to scoring. Jennings and his Chippewas hosted the inaugural Jim DeLapa Collegiate Invitational at Point O’ Woods Country Club in Benton Harbor, where Jennings worked and caddied in his youth and developed his love for the game. The storied course has hosted the Western Amateur, one of the most prestigious amateur tournaments in the United States, 40 times and the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Ben Crenshaw have walked its fairways and won the Amateur title there.
That added to the Chippewas’ already sterling schedule that includes the annual Motor City Matchup, which they co-host with the CMU women’s team at Birmingham Country Club in suburban Detroit in October, and the Bridgestone Collegiate Invitational at Silverado Resort in Napa, Calif., where the Chippewas host a strong field that includes both international collegiate teams and those representing multiple HBCUs.

Jennings’ Chippewas opened the 2024-25 season with an appearance in the Pan Pacific University Golf Super League Tournament in Shizuoka, Japan, and closed the season on a high note as Hunter shot an even-par 72 in the final round of the MAC Championship to surge 17 spots up the leaderboard and into a T16 finish in the 52-player field.
His 17-place improvement marked the second-biggest leap from Round 2 to Round 3 in the 52-player field.
The 2023-24 season saw the Chippewas turn in several outstanding team and individual finishes, beginning with a third in the 10-team field at The Buddy in Murray, Ky. in October. Three Chippewas – Yturralde (third), Jeffrey Andrus (T8) and Arie Jackman (T8) – posted top-10 finishes in the 66-player field.
That trio led CMU to a pair of then-program-record numbers: a final-round 275 and a 54-hole 858 total.
Among the other highlights in 2023-24: Yturralde’s T9 finish in an 83-player field in October in The Carolina Cup in Spartanburg, S.C.; an eighth-place finish in a 22-team field at the Peoples Golf Championship in St. Simons Island, Ga.; and a T12 finish by Yturralde in the the MAC Championship.
In Jennings’ first season at CMU, the youthful Chippewas showed steady improvement throughout the year, culminating in a T10 finish by Andrus at the MAC Championship. Andrus was one of three freshmen in the 42-player field to finish in the top 10.
Jennings, named to head the resurrected program in October, 2021, led CMU to a sixth-place finish in the nine-team Mid-American Conference Championship in May, 2023, capping a successful first season during which the Chippewas showed steady improvement against a challenging schedule that took them to the likes of West Virginia, Texas, Georgia and Arizona.

The Chippewa roster comprised nine players, eight freshman and one junior-college transfer. CMU competed in 11 stroke-play tournaments, recording 10 rounds of 300 or better in the 33 that it played. Individually, six CMU players posted 13 par-or-better rounds, including three 69s.
A native of Benton Harbor, Jennings coached both the men’s and women’s programs at Prairie View A&M in the five years prior to his arrival at CMU.

In 2021, he led the Panther men's program to its third consecutive Southwestern Athletic Conference championship and subsequent NCAA Regional Tournament berth and an appearance in the PGA WORKS Collegiate Championship at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. He also guided the Panther women to a program-best runner-up finish in the league tournament.

During Jennings’ time at Prairie View A&M, 16 of his student-athletes earned All-SWAC honors, two earned the SWAC Freshman of the Year Award, and more than 30 were named to the SWAC Commissioner Honor Roll.

In 2018, Jennings received the Golf Coaches Association of America Mark Leasch Award, which goes to the program that shows the most improvement over the course of a given season.

Previously, Jennings served as the men’s golf coach at Arkansas Pine Bluff, as the head coach/resident center manager at Talladega (Ala.) College, and as the head men’s and women’s golf coach at Le Moyne-Owen College in Memphis.

He has also served as a volunteer assistant coach at Christian Brothers (Tenn.) University, a student assistant coach at Mississippi Valley State, and as a fulltime golf instructor in Tennessee, California and Nevada.

He holds an accounting degree from Mississippi Valley State, a degree from the Golf Academy of America, and is working toward a master’s of administration.

Jennings has also served as chairman of the SWAC golf coaches committee and is on the board of the Black College Golf Coaches Association, the advisory board for the PGA Works Championship, and is a member of the Golf Coaches Association of America, serving on that organization’s diversity council.