Texas Border Business
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros men’s golf team learned on Monday that alum (2006-10) and former head coach (2014-15) Armen Kirakossian has been named the men’s golf head coach at UCLA.
During his tenure as the program’s head coach, Kirakossian led the team to three top-five finishes and guided Nicolas Platret to the Western Athletic Conference Individual Championship to advance to an NCAA Regional, becoming the program’s first since 1978.
As a student-athlete, Kirakossian won the individual medal at the PGA Minority Collegiate Golf Championships as a senior while also earning America Sky First Team All-Conference honors.
As a junior, Kirakossian won the Great West Conference Championship while earning First Team All-Conference and earned Cleveland Golf/Srixon All-American Scholar honors.
Kirakossian shot a program record 204 (67, 66, 71) at the 2009 PGA Minority Collegiate Golf Championships. His second round 66 is tied for the fourth lowest single-round score in program history.
Kirakossian takes the reigns as the sixth head coach in UCLA history after spending five seasons at Arizona State University, where he helped the Sun Devils to four consecutive NCAA Championship appearances, including a runner-up finish in 2021-22 and a third-place finish in 2020-21.
Kirakossian, who was named a Strickland Award winner as the top assistant coach in the country following the 2018-19 season, coached three consecutive Pac-12 Freshman/Newcomer of the Year award winners from 2019-22 and a total of 11 All-Americans at Arizona State.
Prior to his time at Arizona State, Kirakossian spent two seasons at Pepperdine as an assistant coach helping the Waves to their best finish at the NCAA Championships since 2005.
