USF Athletics

• Guided the Bulls the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons (2023, 2024).
• Recruited Melanie Green, a three-time All-Conference performer and 2023 All-American honorable mention, who reached the NCAA • • Regionals as an individual in 2022.
• Brennan’s Bulls have won six tournament titles, three of which came in 2023-24.
• Finished in the top four in nine-of-ten events as a team in 2023-24.
• Helped USF to eight top-10 team finishes in 2021-22.
• Finished in the conference’s upper half in four of the last five AAC Tournaments (third in 2024, fifth in 2023, 2022, and 2019).
• Former head coach at Southern Miss and Saint Leo University.
• Played at Western Carolina University, where she ranked ninth in career scoring average at the school.
• Hosts a podcast while interviewing college sports leaders and also blogs about authenticity in leadership on her website (ErikaBrennan.com).

Erika Brennan’s vision for USF women’s golf hasn’t wavered since the day she was hired as head coach on Dec. 22, 2017.
 
“This is my dream job,’’ Brennan says. “It does mean more here. This is a place right on the cusp, right on the tipping point. The most people who can rally around that, the most it will tip in our favor. We have all the tools to be successful. It’s just a matter of connecting the dots.’’
 
Brennan calls it “The Uprising,’’ her moniker for USF’s drive to become an American Athletic Conference championship contender and a national powerhouse. Progress was made in Brennan’s first full season, 2018-19, when the Bulls become the nation’s second most-improved team by jumping 75 spots in the National Golfstat Rankings. It continued in 2021-22 when the Bulls finished fifth in the AAC Tournament, just one stroke out of fourth, and sophomore Melanie Green qualified as an individual for the NCAA Regionals. The following season, Brennan's Bulls qualified as a team for the 2023 NCAA Tournament for the first time in 11 seasons.
 
“This program can achieve at incredibly high levels,’’ Brennan says. “The bar is set. We know what the objective is. We’re making incremental moves. What’s really cool is each team continues to buy in and understand their task of continuing to elevate it.’’

The 2022-23 season was a record-breaking campaign that culminated in an NCAA Tournament berth. The team set or broke nearly a dozen program records including: scoring average (290.54), rounds of par or better (35), total birdies (478), low team round (273), low round vs. par (-11) and low 54-hole team total (852). Green was named to the All-Conference Team for the third time and earned All-American honorable mention status.
 
In 2021-22, the team elevated USF’s status by registering eight top-10 finishes in 10 tournaments, including a second-place effort at the Palmetto Invitational. The Bulls were sixth at the AAC Tournament, while sophomore Melanie Green finished sixth individually. Green qualified for the NCAA Regionals, where she finished 27th in the 62-player field, marking the first USF women’s golf regional appearance since the team went in 2012. The Bulls set multiple program scoring records during the season and off the links were honored as one of the top 25 teams in the nation academically with the WGCA All-Scholar Team GPA Award (posting a 3.845 team GPA).
 
Green, who set a program record for scoring vs. par (first-round 65, 7-under at the USA Intercollegiate), was in the individual top 10 seven times and won the Trinity Forest Invitational for her first career collegiate tournament title. Green set USF single-season records for scoring average (71.97), birdies (111) and rounds at par or better (19).
 
It was an emphatic follow-up to Green’s freshman season in 2020-21, when she finished second individually in her first collegiate event (FAU Paradise Invitational). Green tied for fourth individually at the AAC Tournament and helped the Bulls to a sixth-place team finish.
 
Green was selected All-ACC in her freshman and sophomore seasons, giving Brennan three all-conference players (along with freshman Ramya Meenakshisundaram in 2018-19).
 
Brennan grew up in Lake Wales, a Polk County town about an hour from USF’s Tampa campus. She’s the daughter of a career firefighter. At age 4, she began playing golf and loved being around her father and his co-workers as they hit the links following their shift. She learned about loyalty, camaraderie and competitiveness.
 
Her playing career took her to Western Carolina University. She became a head coach at Saint Leo University and Southern Miss, always keeping an eye on the USF program back in her hometown area. When the Bulls’ job unexpectedly came open near the end of 2017, Brennan was faced with a difficult decision.
 
“I knew USF was a place I’d ultimately like to coach, but when the opportunity came, it meant leaving a team I deeply loved at Southern Miss at midseason,’’ Brennan says. “It was incredibly gut-wrenching. You never want to do that. I would have never done that had it not been for USF. Being here really meant that much.’’
 
Aside from winning two tournaments in 2018-19, her first full season, USF set several program records under the guidance of Brennan, including season scoring average (293.43), team rounds of par or better (6), season eagles (7), par-3 scoring average (3.1597), par-4 scoring average (4.1882) and par-5 scoring average (5.0319). The Bulls also set school records for 54-hole total and 54-hole total vs. par for a par-72 tournament with a 1-over 865 at the FIU Pat Bradley Invitational, where the team placed second.
 
The Bulls placed in the top 10 in all eight of their tournaments with fields of at least 12 teams. At the AAC Tournament (fifth place), the Bulls were four spots and 34 shots better than their performance at the 2018 conference tournament.
 
Individually, Meenakshisundaram earned all-conference honors after setting program records for scoring average (73.0) and par-4 scoring (4.1066) while tying the Bulls' top season mark with 12 rounds of par or better. Meenakshisundaram earned co-medalist honors at the Florida Challenge, which marked USF's first team tournament title victory since April 11, 2017.
 
Senior Natalia Villavicencio also shined in 2018-19, winning two tournaments and setting the school's season record for total birdies (90). Villavicencio also matched the program's low round and low round vs. par records with a 6-under 66 in the second round of the Lady Paladin Invitational.
 
USF women's golf also received a Public Recognition Award from the NCAA for the seventh straight year in 2020 for earning a high score in the most recent Academic Progress Rate (APR) compilation. USF earned a perfect multi-year APR score of 1,000 for the seventh straight year and 10th time overall to rank among the top 10 percent nationally in APR performance in its respective sport.
 
In Brennan's second full season (2019-20), USF won its third team title since spring 2019 with a 20-shot, wire-to-wire win at the Old Friends Invitational at Tampa Palms Golf and Country Club. Overall, USF had top-10 finishes in five of six events that featured at least 11 teams, placing inside the top five twice.
 
 
Freshman Erika Smith collected three top-10 finishes and four top-25 performances in seven events, while capturing her first career title at the Old Friends Invitational. Smith, an Orlando native, carded three straight under-par scores (71-71-70) to finish with a 4-under 212 in her nine-shot victory. In the fall, Smith set USF’s low-round record and tied the top mark for low round vs. par with a 6-under 64 in the final round of the Princess Anne Invitational on Oct. 6. Smith also reached a program milestone for 54-hole scoring with a 207 on the way to tying for fifth in the 82-player field at the event.
 
Excellence in the classroom continued for the Bulls under Brennan in 2019-20. In the fall, the program posted a perfect score in the Graduation Success Rate (GSR) for the fourth consecutive year. Seven Bulls on the roster were named to the USF Athletics Honors Roll in fall 2019 after earning at least a 3.0 grade-point average.
 
Before USF, Brennan spent two seasons at Southern Miss, where she improved the Golden Eagles national ranking by 111 places (187 to 76). She helped Southern Miss to six tournament titles and a third-place finish (and three top-10 finishers) at the Conference USA Championship.
 
She came to Southern Miss after spending 2013-14 as an assistant with the University of Tennessee, which reached the 2014 NCAA Regionals.
 
Brennan was head coach at Saint Leo from 2008-13, where the Lions had three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. Brennan was named Saint Leo’s Coach of the Year in 2011.
 
The Lions made their first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance in 2010. The program ranked in the top 10 in 2011, 2012 and 2013. In the fall of 2012, the squad set records for low single-round team score (291) and low 36-hole tournament score (592), which they carded at the Myrtle Beach Intercollegiate.
 
Brennan also served as the National Recruiting Coordinator for Dan Tudor Collegiate Strategies between her stints at Saint Leo and Southern Miss. Prior to entering collegiate coaching, she spent two years as a certified instructor for the David Leadbetter Golf Academy (2006-08) and also worked in an operations role for the American Junior Golf Association.
 
Brennan graduated from Western Carolina in 2006 with a degree in sport management. She also has a master’s degree in management from Warner University and is pursuing a master’s degree in human capital development from Southern Mississippi.
 
As a player, Brennan finished her career ranked in the top 20 in the Southern Conference and ranks ninth all-time at WCU in career scoring average. She was named the Catamount's Female Scholar Athlete of the Year in 2005 for her academic efforts, which included being named to the WCU Honors College and serving as the vice president of the Western Carolina Student-Athlete Advisory Council and a member of the Southern Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Council.
 
She hosts a podcast, “Leading Beyond Sport,’’ where she interviews guests who work in college athletics. She blogs on the topic of authenticity in leadership at ErikaBrennan.com.
 
Brennan and her husband, Brian, have a daughter, Lou.