By Touissant Fancher
Medill Reports
Working with family can be rough. For Jesse Mueller, it benefits his craft.
Golf can be difficult and demanding but working as a coach alongside playing professionally can be even more intense.
Mueller is a Grand Canyon University assistant coach and the school’s golf course general manager. He once focused on just playing but changed his plan.
“I played for 10 years and now I manage Grand Canyon’s golf course, and through the PGA of America, I get a chance to play in few events like this one, Mueller said of the WM Phoenix Open. “If I was on the PGA tour, I would play full time but it’s just so hard to get there.”
Mueller’s job allows him to work alongside his family, which he said helps him succeed at his job.
He’s one of three family members who works for GCU. His younger brother Mark is the head coach of the men’s golf team, and his dad is the university president.
“It’s great to be connected with my family and work with them in certain aspects of the job,” Mueller said. “All of us get along very well, so it’s great.”
But the journeyman’s family ties don’t stop his work ethic.
“I mean, he works harder than anyone I’ve ever seen,” said Micah Meyer, GCU’s associate athletic director of finance. “He’s an example for them at the golf course.
Mueller qualified to play in the WM Phoenix Open after winning the 2024 Cologuard Classic Section Qualifier, representing the Southwest PGA.
Mueller brings a certain level of expertise that’s indispensable to GCU’s golf team.
“A lot of what he does is through his experience,” Meyer said. “He passes that along to the players along with course strategy and course management, and if they guys ever need help beyond that, he’s available as a resource to them.”
Visibly noticeable in the warm sun due to his purple and white GCU polo, Mueller and his experience are overlooked on the golf course. Even though he’s had little success in national tournaments, he’s won with family by his side.
In 2022, Mueller won the PGA professional championship with his wife as his caddie.
“She’s caddied for me at the majors and a couple of PGA tour events, and it’s nice to have her on the bag,” he said.
In the final round of that tournament, Mueller held a five-stroke advantage going into the final round. He held on to the win, delivering the best 12th wedding anniversary gift — a $60,000 purse and an automatic PGA championship berth.
The 2022 win was the first time a Southwest PGA professional won the PGA Professional Championship in its 54-year history.
At his year’s WM Phoenix Open, he didn’t make the final cut. Mueller came off the green after the second day, ready for his next challenge.
“The PGA America national championship is in April, and that’s a big one because the top 20 get into the PGA Championship,” he said. “The winner of that one gets to do a bunch of tour events so that’s my next big tournament, and if I do well, it gets me into some other ones.”
Toussaint Fancher is a sports media graduate student at Medill. You can follow him on X at @tousfancher.
