Cook Set the Bar High for Golf Accomplishments

By Brandon Stephens

(Cullowhee) – – Until the mid to late 1990’s, Golf was probably one of the most boring sports to see on TV until nationally Tiger Woods and locally Murphy High Golf star Matt Cook made the sport really cool.  Cook was recruited and played at Western Carolina University (WCU) where he became a well-accomplished Southern Conference and national standout.  

At age three Matt started swinging the golf clubs and fifteen years later it paid off.  Cook’s pathway was paved by his high school performance and the help of his high school coach Wayne Watson and influence from football coach David Gentry.  Coach Wayne Watson says coaching Matt was exciting and relatively easy as he explains.

Current Murphy Head Football Coach and Golf Coach Joseph Watson was a WCU football player when Cook was completing high school and transitioning to college.  Cook says it was older generations like Joseph and Brandon Beaver who helped him and made time to play golf with him.  Coach Joseph Watson describes the character and athletic fiber in Matt Cook.

Matt Cook was new at WCU along with former Golf Coach Gorham Bradley.  Coach Bradley described Matt as a cavalier young man walking into the college world.  Bradley had heard how accomplished Cook was in high school, but he had to see proof he could be a good golfer.  Backed by former WCU football coach and golf coach Johnny White, Cook kept his word to be a record-setting Catamount golfer according to Bradley.

Since leaving WCU, Matt Cook has maintained a strong connection with golf.  He serves as a golf professional in the western North Carolina region.  During the spring it was impressive how Cook connected young high school golfers at the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) regional tournament that was held in Hayesville.  Cook explains it is important to follow your dreams and he is helping younger generations swing the golf clubs and realize their dreams too.  Cook is a good mentor to the rising athletic stars.  He set the bar high for dreams.  But he also knows how to reach the dreams!

WCU reports his accomplishments, which illustrate why Matt Cook is deserving of being inducted in the 2024 WCU Athletics Hall of Fame Class.  Data and information are compiled by WCU Athletic Media Relations, Daniel Hooker.

Matt Cook (2004-08) helped change the trajectory of Catamount men’s golf during his four-year career, becoming one of the first faces of the WCU golf program and helping put Cullowhee on the golfing world map. In short, Cook was the first Catamount men’s golfer to compete in an NCAA regional, totaling three postseason appearances in his career – twice as an individual in 2006 and 2007, and with the team’s at-large berth in 2008.

 A Western North Carolina product out of Murphy, Cook posted 27 Top 10 finishes during his Catamount career including 19 times finishing inside the Top Five in tournament play. Among those 19 Top Fives were 15 podium – or top three – finishes and he claimed individual medalist honors nine times, twice winning the Southern Conference Men’s Golf Championship in 2006 at The Links at Stono Ferry in Hollywood, S.C., and in 2008 at the Country Club of South Carolina in Florence.

During his four-year career, Cook earned an unprecedented – and league record – nine SoCon Men’s Golfer of the Month plaudits. He was WCU’s first, four-time All-Southern Conference honoree and became only the second Catamount men’s golfer to garner SoCon Player of the Year accolades in 2006. That same year, Cook became the first of just two Catamount men’s golfers all-time to reach GolfStat’s No. 1 ranking. Additionally, Cook was also WCU’s first golfer all-time to earn a Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) All-America selection in 2008 as an honorable mention, coupling the national recognition with a PING All-Region selection from the same organization.

 Cook closed his Catamount career with the top three single-season scoring averages in program history and continues to hold three of the Top 10 seasonal stroke averages in program history. He established a school record in 2006-07 by averaging 71.81 over 26 rounds including a then school-record low individual 18-hole score of 65 at the Frank Landrey Invitational on his way to the program-low 36-hole score of 132 (65-67) that stands today. Cook just missed his record season-low average the following year, posting a season-scoring average of 72.00 across 34 rounds including NCAA regional play in 2007-08.

 All told, Cook finished his time in Cullowhee atop the career scoring average charts with an average of 72.11 over 107 combined rounds in his four years for the Purple & Gold. His mark currently ranks third in the school ledgers – but remains second among golfers with over 100 career rounds, trailing only JT Poston (71.73). He is also just one of eight on record to eclipse the century mark with career rounds played for WCU.

 Cook joins former Catamount men’s golfers Brett D. Miller and former coach Johnny Wike as the third representative from the golf program in the WCU Athletics Hall of Fame.