Michael Michaelides
Head Coach

Phone: (718) 488-1074
Email: michael.michaelides@liu.edu

A former two-time most valuable player at LIU, Michael Michaelides begins his 15th season with the LIU Brooklyn golf program as the head coach of the men’s team in 2018-19. Michaelides spent seven seasons at the helm of the women’s team before focusing solely on the men's squad in 2011-12.

In 2015, he guided the team to a third place tie at the Northeast Conference Championships, which included  George Williams winning the  individual title. Williams earned First Team All-NEC honors and finished tied for 11th at the NCAA Regionals. 

In 2012 and 2013, Michaelides led the men's squad to runner-up finishes at the NEC Championships. In '13, the Blackbirds saw senior Josh Waters become the first player in school history to be named NEC Golfer of the Year after winning the individual title at the NEC Tournament.

The win also earned Waters an individual spot into NCAA Regionals and joined teammate Obediah Ayton as the first LIU golfers to be named to the PING All-Region team.

A year earlier, Waters and junior Jamie Young earned All-Tournament Team honors for finishing in the Top 10, while Ayton was named the league's Rookie of the Year following the event.

In 2011, the men’s team took third place at the conference championship, while the women’s team took sixth. In 2010, the women’s team took second place for the second year in a row, while a young men’s squad finished eighth with Waters finishing 11^th individually.

In 2009, the former Blackbird captain mentored a women’s program that took second place at the NEC Championship and saw Desjardins garner NEC Player of the Year honors. A team-record 306 final-round tally showcased the talent Michaelides has built on the women’s side. The men weren’t far behind as they grabbed third-place in the conference championship, including a second-place individual finish from Greg Nicolson.

The men and women combined for five individual tournament crowns in the 2009 season, including Desjardins’ victory at the Lonnie Barton Invitational, a tournament named after the former head coach at LIU who succumbed to cancer in 2004. During his time with the women, Michaelides coached back-to-back Northeast Conference individual champions, Anna Palsson (2011) and Natalie Desjardins (2010).

Michaelides oversaw a men’s program that finished second at the NEC Championship in 2008, including a fifth-place finish for Rocky Co. Michaelides was responsible for a women’s squad that garnered a second-place finish at the Mount St. Mary’s Invitational and an individual title for Desjardins at the Hartford Invitational.

In 2007, Michaelides guided a women’s program that won two tournaments as a team and had one individual champion (Desjardins at the Mount St. Mary’s Fall Invitational). The men’s squad also had its share of success as Patrick Kelly became the first male Blackbird to win the NEC Tournament individual title. In addition, Kelly was victorious at the Lonnie Barton Invitational.

With only one returning letterwinner on the women’s team and none on the men’s side in 2006, Michaelides guided the men to third place at the NEC Championship. The results were even better for the women, as a 319 in the final round pushed the squad to a runner-up finish.

In his nine full years as head coach, Michaelides has coached 20 all-conference performers, a pair of NEC Rookies of the Year (Desjardins, 2006; Ayton, 2012), and LIU’s first-ever NEC individual champions on both the women’s side (Shauna Wilde, 2005) and the men’s side (Kelly, 2007).

During the 2003-04 campaign, Michaelides took over the men’s and women’s programs in mid-season due to the illness of then-coach Barton. The results were impressive: a second-place finish at the NEC Championship for the women and a NEC championship and first-ever berth into the NCAA Regionals for the men. In his first full campaign, Michaelides built upon the successes of the previous season. He led the men’s squad to a runner-up result at the NEC Championship and the women’s team to its first conference crown and subsequent trip to the NCAA Regionals.

In the summer of 2008, Michaelides competed on the Golf Channel’s “Big Break X: Michigan” with Monmouth head golf coach Sherri McDonald. The duo finished sixth overall in the competition.

Prior to his arrival, Michaelides served as the assistant golf pro at The Woodcrest Club in Syosset, N.Y. from 2000-02 and Oyster Bay Golf Course from 2002-03. In 1999, Michaelides worked as an assistant golf pro at Bethpage State Park Golf Course, which hosted the 2009 U.S. Open.

Michaelides continues to play competitively, including participating in long drive competitions. He participated in the ReMax World Long Drive Championships in October 2009.

A native of Bayside, N.Y., Michaelides resides in East Elmhurst, N.Y.

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