Michael Roters and Kirby Dreher joined women’s golf coach Megan Menzel’s staff during the off-season.

By Jake Mosbach
[email protected]

Over the off-season, the Iowa women’s golf program announced the addition of two well-accomplished, well-traveled assistant coaches.

Kirby Dreher and Michael Roters have joined head coach Megan Menzel’s staff for the 2015 season.

Dreher and Roters have both had successful professional golf careers spanning the United States and Canada, and they bring a wealth of knowledge to a young Hawkeye team.

“They both have been great on-course players, and I know that they’ll continue that and be great on-course coaches,” Menzel said at the team’s photo day. “We’re really excited with their additions.”

Roters, a Boise, Idaho, native, comes to Iowa after serving as an assistant coach at Idaho. Last season, he helped coach three of his players to all-conference honors, as well as sending one to the NCAA Tournament. He joined the Hawkeye staff after meeting Menzel at the tournament.

But it’s a wonder that Roters became a professional golfer or coach at all. He was a standout baseball player in college at Mount Hood Community College and New Mexico State, and he had aspirations of going pro on the diamond.

“I always dreamed of being a professional baseball player,” he said. “First was baseball, then competitive downhill skiing, wrestling, then golf. But I was the most talented at golf and always knew that the lifespan of a golf career was longer than other sports.”

Roters said the key to being a successful coach (and he’s been a very successful coach) comes down to a couple very important things.

“If you can get students to understand that there is always something greater than themselves, they stand a chance at being great if they have the work ethic,” Roters said. “My plans are to work with Megan to build a powerhouse program that is always competing at a high level.

“We gel really well together and believe we can do something special here.”

Dreher, a native of Fort St. John, British Columbia, grew up playing hockey.  But at a young age, she knew golf was in her future.

“We [my brother and I] had played golf a few times very casually, but when I was 8 and he was 11, my mother got us memberships at our local nine-hole course for the summer.  After that, we were hooked and never looked back.”

Dreher made her LPGA début in 2008 and graduated from Kent State on a golf scholarship in 2009. Over the course of her six-year professional career, she competed in numerous LPGA events, but she thought that college coaching would be the next step in her golf journey.

“I always thought that coaching at the collegiate level was something I would like to do if I wasn’t playing professionally,” she said. “I would frequently check the NCAA job openings and saw the assistant position opening at Iowa, so I reached out to Coach Menzel.

“This seemed like the perfect opportunity to ease out of the busy and demanding schedule of the touring life and in to something else I have a big interest in,” Dreher said.

So, what does she think is the important thing to teach a college golfer?

“Patience and fun … I want them to have fun while they’re out there,” Dreher said. “A bad round or bad hole isn’t the end of the world.”

Follow @RealJakeMosbach on Twitter for news, updates, and analysis about the Iowa women’s golf team.