Another NAIT athletics team is on the rise, and they’ve blazed their way to the top of a short-lived season. NAIT’s golf team is officially heading to nationals again, and they look ready to continue their winning ways in Montreal from Oct. 12-16. Seven golfers will represent NAIT at nationals, headlined by Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) women’s golfer of the year Ella Dolan and ACAC women’s rookie of the year Nicole Dugas.
These two spectacular golfers started the first regional of the golf season with Dolan winning and Dugas placing second, and the two have lived on the podium since.
“They’ve been kind of at the top of the leaderboard the whole season, which is really cool to see that sustained performance from both of them,” said Ooks golf head coach Tyler Leicht.
Dolan won it all at the championships after making a comeback from day two, becoming the 2026-27 ACAC women’s golf champion. Seeing everyone cheer her on was “a pretty special moment for [the] program,” said Leicht.
Dugas placed a respectable fourth, but the Ooks also won women’s team championships — for the first time ever — and placed second in mixed team championships.
“[Dolan’s been a force in the ACAC for a while, but to have [Dugas] there chipping in, too, that made a big difference for the team score,” said Leicht.
At the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) nationals, though, the women qualified as individuals and will each represent two different ACAC women’s regional conference teams. For collegiate golf in Canada, the women’s side is typically smaller than the men’s, Leicht explained.
“But [it] makes it fun, makes it interesting. You want their team to do well. But you also want them individually to do well,” said Leicht. “With the other coaches in your conference, you kind of share that responsibility a little bit of coaching that team. So it’s fun. It’s a different take on golf, for sure.”
The men also had impressive results at the provincial level. Ooks rookie Russell Quinn placed first in Regional #1 and second in Regional #2. Then, the Ooks placed second at the men’s team championships and qualified for nationals as a team. Quinn, Donovan Caldwell, Brophy Dunne, Ashton Karaim and Drew Campbell will represent NAIT at CCAA nationals.
Caldwell, who placed sixth individually at ACAC championships, was the 2025-26 rookie of the year and will help team captain and dual-athlete Dunne lead the team in Montreal.
Leicht is confident in the team’s composition. In a system where the four lowest scoring golfers are counted, consistent scoring across the board is everything.
“It’s a little bit art and science,” Leicht said.
As a coach, his job is to gather intel about the course, hits and even how the wind impacts the players to help everyone else. “That can be the difference between making a par or birdie and making a double or triple bogey,” he said. “Over the course of 18 holes, those strokes add up, so you want to try and mitigate that damage as much as possible.”
But then there’s adapting distances for different players, which is a whole different game within golf itself. For example, 175 yards out for Quinn is a different club for Caldwell, Leicht explains. “You kind of got to know a little bit about your players, how they like to play shots, how they can play shots, what their stock yardages are, and build that in to hopefully relay the best information possible.”
This requires communication — sometimes the player may be feeling different, Leicht explains. “And that’s kind of that conversation, that trust you gotta build amongst yourself and your student athletes to get a good plan to hopefully hit the right shot.”
For the coaches, this is a large task to undertake. With all other collegiate sports, all players are involved centrally in an activity. Even though the rosters are larger, everyone is congregated. Golf is far from that.
“[Our team is] hitting 70, 80, 90, 100 shots a day. But for the coaching staff, it feels like we’re hitting a thousand shots a day because we’re not the ones actually pulling the trigger on the golf club,” said Leicht.
But the coaches are still seeing those shots, talking through them and determining how their athletes are feeling mentally and physically. “A golf swing happens in two seconds. So you gotta make sure that you have everything compiled and ready to go for that one instance where you’re going to make contact.”
A heavy amount of work goes into every competition for everyone involved. But Leicht says he gives most of the credit to the student athletes and the chemistry they have. “They’ve built a super cool culture on the team where they support each other,” he said. It’s one thing to battle it out against other student athletes on the course, but another to be able to get cleaned up, go for dinner and enjoy time with each other.
While golf is not a fast paced sport, the critical moments of precision and planning for the correct move is worth its weight in gold. “We’ve been right there for four years trying to compete to win a banner and win a medal.”
By the weekend, we’ll know if NAIT’s loaded squad — which has been firing on all cylinders and pushing past expectations — will be bringing CCAA gold back to Edmonton.
Feature image via NAIT Ooks
