Dan Wood, who was hired as the inaugural coach of the women’s golf team at Ithaca, has led the Bombers in each of their five full varsity seasons through the 2013-14 campaign.
His tenure has been marked by continuous and steady improvement by the team and each individual program over the last five years. He is a four-time Empire 8 Coach of the Year and chairs the conference's women's golf committee. He led the Bombers to the NCAA Division III Championships in 2014 where the team placed tied for fifth. Sharon Li became the first player to earn All-America recognition from the Women's Golf Coaches Association as a sophomore in 2013 and repeated that first-team honor in 2014. Li was also named Division III Player of the Year for 2013-14 by the WGCA.
Wood is a member of the Professional Golf Association and a former Senior PGA Tour champion. He coached men’s soccer and men’s tennis at Cornell University (leading the Big Red soccer team to the NCAA semifinals in 1972) while also teaching golf in the physical education department. Wood left Cornell for a coaching stint in professional soccer, coaching North American Soccer League teams in Denver, Atlanta and Minneapolis from 1977 to 1984.
Wood joined the PGA of America in 1985 and competed as a club professional from 1985-1996, qualifying for the PGA Championship at Bellerive in St. Louis in 1992 and winning the Florida Open in 1995. He joined the Senior PGA Tour (now known as the PGA Champions Tour full-time in 1996 and played in senior events until back surgery slowed him in late 1999. He qualified for five US Senior Opens, tying for seventh at Riviera Country Club in 1998 (he finished two shots ahead of Jack Nicklaus). Wood won the 2002 Otesaga Seniors Open in Cooperstown with an 11-under par 205 and has won the last two North Florida PGA Super Seniors titles. In 2007 he qualified for the inaugural Dick's Sporting Goods Champions Tour event at En-Joie Golf Club in Endicott.
He is the son of the late Carlton “Carp” Wood, a charter member of the Ithaca College Athletic Hall of Fame who coached men’s soccer, men’s basketball and baseball at Ithaca and served as the school’s athletic director.
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