East Michigan News

Caterina Don Named EMU Assistant Women’s Golf Coach

Jul 15, 2024

YPSILANTI, Mich. (EMUEagles.com) — Caterina Don, a standout golfer at the University of Georgia for the past five seasons, has been named an assistant women's coach at Eastern Michigan University, Head Coach Josh Brewer announced today.

"It is another exciting day for Eastern Women's Golf," Brewer said. "We are honored to have Caterina Don join our coaching staff. I really enjoyed being her coach for five years; now I get to call her a teammate. Caterina will bring a vast knowledge of how to prepare and compete as she was and still is one of the best players in women's amateur golf. As a standout student-athlete herself, Caterina will also make sure we grow our players to be amazing women when they leave Ypsi. Again I want to thank Caterina for joining me and believing in what we are building at Eastern."

The first full-time assistant coach in EMU program history, the 23-year-old Don had an illustrious career at Georgia, marked by numerous accolades and standout performances. During the 2023-24 season, she was named honorable mention All-America by both the Women's Golf Coaches Association (WGCA) and Golfweek and was voted second-team All-SEC for the third time in her career.

Academically, she was named to the WGCA's All-American Scholar team and the SEC's Academic Honor Roll for the fifth time. Don also served as the female student-athlete representative on the UGA Athletic Association's Board of Directors and was Georgia's nominee for the prestigious Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Award. She finished the season ranked No. 31 in the NCAA's Scoreboard rankings and led the Bulldogs in virtually every statistical category, including stroke average (71.54), par-or-better rounds (21), birdies (127), and top-20 finishes (11). Notably, she was Georgia's top individual finisher in 10 of 13 tournaments, posting a remarkable fourth-best stroke average in school history.

"I am super excited to join Coach Brewer and get the chance to coach an incredible group of student-athletes," added Don. "When Josh reached out to me, I saw an incredible opportunity to build something special and bring a championship home. I love the athletic department and university atmosphere, and I cannot wait to get to work. I hope to bring to the team an analytic eye on their golf game, and hopefully, I will be able to share my collegiate experience and help them make the next years unforgettable."

In the 2022-23 season, Don received the Joel Eaves Award for having the highest GPA among UGA's senior female student-athletes and was named to the College Sports Communicators (CSC) At-Large All-District Team. She participated in a panel celebrating Title IX's 50th anniversary and was honored as a "Peach of an Athlete" by Atlanta Area Council of Boy Scouts of America. She served as Vice President of UGA's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) while competing in 12 tournaments with four top-10 finishes out of eight spring starts.

During her junior year (2021-22), Don competed in all 11 team tournaments with a stroke average of 73.61 over 36 rounds contributing counting scores in 88.2 percent of team rounds.

In her sophomore year (2020-21), she earned second-team All-SEC honors again while maintaining academic excellence on SEC Academic Honor Roll.

As a freshman during 2019-20 season Don led Georgia statistically across several categories earning second-team All-America recognition from Golfweek along with second-team All-SEC honor after winning Minnesota Invitational tournament becoming only second player from university achieving such feat making captain Italy National Team internationally recognized competitor medalist Italian Match Play Championships Women Open respectively .

Before joining UGA , highly ranked World Amateur European Rankings impressive record top finishes international competitions including victories European Girls' Team Championship multiple Italian national championships inaugural Augusta National Women's Amateur tied twelfth position born raised Northern Italy moved college USA formerly skier still enjoys skiing slopes achieved Bachelor Mathematics minors Statistics Global Health certification Data Science recipient Liz Murphey Women Athletic Scholarship Endowment Ramsey Scholarship Academic Athletic Excellence .