Russell Grove balances coaching and playing professionally going into a new era

CHENEY — The life of a coach is a balancing act between their job responsibilities and personal responsibilities, according to a statement by Eastern Washington Athletics. 

The balance is even more challenging when you have a third element, a professional playing career. Eastern Washington men's golf head coach Russell Grove embraces the challenge and uses playing in local professional events to improve as a coach.  

"I've learned a lot over the last 20 years of playing since I graduated and played college golf. Golf is a game where you're continuously learning. Being there and learning from your own experiences and mistakes; I'm able to help transfer those lessons and coach the guys to help them really fast-forward the learning process."

Grove was hired to restart the EWU men's golf program this past January after coaching at North Idaho College for 10 years. He expanded on the lessons he wants to impress on his student-athletes.

"A lot of course management, the mental game, swing fundamentals, equipment choices; it really never stops. Even some of the older golf pros I know who are in their 60s, even 70s; it's an endless pursuit of trying to get better. Being in those situations myself, learning from them firsthand, and then being able to pass that knowledge on to the players; that's the beauty of golf. It challenges every aspect of you strategically, mentally, and physically. You have to try and master all those components."

Balancing his professional career with coach, Grove has works to play between seven and eight events a year.

"Over the last several years, it's been pretty consistent. I like to try to play the section events of the Pacific Northwest PGA, which are the Washington Open, Northwest Open, Rosauers Open, Oregon Open, Section Championship, and then a couple other ones."

Grove draws his inspiration for playing from other pros, but one in particular stands out.

"Tiger, obviously back in his day. What he did was pretty incredible. He really inspired me and, obviously, millions of other people to go play golf. He really made golf what it is today and I hope he's not done with his career. I know he's been battling injuries, but he's just the ultimate competitor. Currently I like Adam Scott's golf swing and was pulling for him in the US Open. It was cool to see Rory win the Grand Slam, of course. I still think it would be great if Tiger could get healthy again and come back to the course."

For Grove, the competition and improvement at each event is what enjoys the most.

"I love the competition, and I love trying to get better. In every tournament, I kind of used to look at it as almost an end-all, be-all type thing, not that extreme, but like, "This is it." Now I kind of look at tournaments as: What am I going to learn this week? Or what am I going to learn today? Or how can I get better? Even guys on the Senior Tour are always trying to learn and improve. It's that knowing that even everybody's best round of golf could always be better, right? What I love about it most is the competition and the endless pursuit of learning and trying to improve."

Playing at the highest levels, there are always challenges that Grove faces.

"When you try new things, sometimes you go backwards, and that's challenging. It's a lot of experimenting. The challenging thing is just knowing that you'll never master it, but that's also the beauty of it."

Improving is the cornerstone of Grove's philosophy as a professional and it shapes his ultimate goal for his career.

"My goal is to continuously try to get better every week, month, year. That is simply my ultimate goal, and that's what essentially everybody's chasing. Even the best players in the world are still trying to get better and learn and improve."

With a good mix of professional events, Grove is able to develop more contacts that help his recruiting efforts as a coach.

"A lot of the recruiting is through connections. I played a round a couple weeks ago, and a friend had mentioned a player he had worked with. I ended up watching him play. It's things like that where the golf community has a lot of connections. Being active in that can definitely help on the recruiting side."

Grove expanded on the benefits of his playing career on his recruiting benefits, "A lot of recruits like that; a coach that has either been there, done that, or can play at a high level and push them. That's kind of the thing I tell all the recruits: my goal is to help you get as good as you can, as quickly as you can. I played Division I golf myself, and at that time, I thought I knew a lot, but I didn't. Even now, I probably think I know a fair amount, but there's still so much to learn and improve on. I'm definitely more of a player's coach, so I understand and relate to things they're going through or thinking about."

These benefits are apparent in Grove's inaugural recruiting class.

"Starting off, we're bringing in two transfers with Zach Miller from Oregon State and Trey LeCheminant from Spokane Community College. I'll also have three incoming freshmen: Cal Anderson and Charlie Gaffney, both from Washington, along with Kevin Wang from California. The three freshmen had a good spring. I'm excited I was able to grab those top signees that weren't signed right off the bat."

The five new Eagles will help form the foundation for the program's restart. With his roster taking shape, Grove has clear, immediate goals for the program.

"My goal going in is I want to be successful right away. It's going to be my goal to win the Big Sky. I do need, obviously, some guys and good transfers that can compete at this level. What's been awesome, is the fact that basically every course I've talked to around here is open to having us out there to play and practice. We have quite a few courses in the Spokane area that we can go play at and practice."

Grove sees the area, with a wealth of top-end courses, as a key strength for the program.

"My favorite course around here is Black Rock Golf Course. Some of the views on the lake and just the layout; it's just a really fun golf course to play. There are a ton of great golf courses around here. There are quite a few in the Top 100, with Coeur d'Alene Resort, Circling Raven, Gozzer Ranch, CDA National, Black Rock, the Idaho Club up in Sandpoint, Manito CC, and Kalispel CC. There's a lot of great golf in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene."

Building those connections with the local courses helps improve the ability of Eastern to better impact Spokane county as a whole.

"There's a ton of people excited about it, that's for sure. There are a lot of Eastern alumni that are in the golf world. There are quite a few head pros that went and played here. A lot of people are excited about it. Right now, we have four signees from Washington and we're going to prioritize recruiting in-state."

Eastern Washington takes the course for the first time since 2002 this fall. The Eagles start the 2025-26 season at the Palouse Collegiate, starting on Sep. 8 and ending on the 10th.

    Eagles head coach Russell Grove taking a swing during a golf tournament. Grove recently concluded his first season as the Eagles golf coach.