UND Hall of Famer Todd Schaefer enters his seventh season as North Dakota's head men's golf coach in the 2025-26 season. He was named the head golf coach in August 2019. A Grand Forks, N.D., native, Schaefer was a Hall of Fame golfer for UND in the 1980s and has remained a fixture in the golf scene in this area ever since.
It was another year, another group of records that fell under Schaefer's guidance, as he helped the Fighting Hawks match the program record for a team score at the ODU/OBX Intercollegiate that was set in 2023-24 on the final day of the Summit League Men's Golf Championships -- a score that bested the previous mark by 17 strokes.
The 2024-25 squad also two medalist finishes and saw Nathan Peyerl and Grayson Wetch become the first pair of UND men's golfers to earn Summit League weekly honors.
Records have continued to fall under Schaefer, with the Fighting Hawks once again rewriting the record book in 2023-24 at the Summit League Championships. As a team, UND shot s 276 (-8) to shatter the previous school record by eight strokes and finished the event with an overall team score of 863 (-1) to demolish the school record by a whopping 17 stokes.
After a record-breaking year in 2021-22, Schaefer and the Fighting Hawks were at it again with another shattering year for the program since moving to the Division I level. Sophomore Lucas Feterl shined on the individual course with a 67 (-4) in the second round of the ODU/OBX Intercollegiate to post the third-lowest score by a UND men's player in the DI era.
UND also broke the program's Division I era record for the lowest total team score in a round on a pair of occasions, firing a 284 in the final round of play at the Zach Johnson Invitational on Sept. 27 and then matching the feat in the second round of the ODU/OBX Intercollegiate on Oct. 24.
The 2022-23 squad continued to set records on the team side, finishing with the lowest 54-hole score since the program moved to Division I with an 881 at the Stampede at the Creek in Omaha, Neb. (Apr. 10-11, 2023). As a team, the Fighting Hawks also finished with a 301.79 scoring average, the lowest since moving to the Summit League.
Schaefer led the Fighting Hawks to a record breaking year in the 2021-22 season. He coached sophomore
Brandon McGarry as he recorded the second lowest individual score in the Division I era by securing a 66 in the second round of the Stampede at the Creek on Oct. 4-5, 2022 in Omaha, Neb.
Along with that feat, he coached the rest of the team as they secured the lowest total team score in the Division I era by carding a 287 in the second round of Stampede at the Creak on Oct. 4-5, 2022. Not only did they achieve this feat, but the men's golf team also recorded the second lowest total team score in the Division I era (2009-2022) with a 908 in the Summit League Championships in Newton, Kan. This team score of 908 resulted in them also recording the lowest team score since the Fighting Hawks entered the Summit League. They continued to etch their names in the record books as they secured the second lowest team score average per round in the Division I era with a team average of 306.
Schaefer helped lead the Fighting Sioux to three North Central Conference (NCC) championships (1981-83). He played in three NCAA Division II national tournaments, earning honorable mention all-America honors as a sophomore and was a second teamer as a senior.
He was the NCC Medalist in 1984 and during his amateur golf career won four Grand Forks All-City Tournament, a pair of North Dakota Open Amateur titles, 11 North Dakota Sttae Championships, two Birchmont Mid-Amateur crowns and was honored to compete nationally in the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Mid-Amateur and three USGA team events.
He is an inductee of three halls of fame, going into UND's Hall of Fame in 2000, before being inducted to the North Dakota Hall of Fame in 2003 and most recently into Red River High School's Hall of Fame.
Recently, Schaefer has sat on numerous athletics boards, including a 25-year stint as a North Dakota Golf Association member to help promote golf and events in the state. He also served terms on the Grand Forks Country Club board and the UND Letterwinner board and is currently on the NDGA Hall of Fame board.
