Brittany Dabule, a former standout at Winthrop, took over the Longwood women's golf program in July, 2019 following a three-year stint at USC Beaufort where she built the Sandsharks into a national contender at the NAIA level.
In 2022-23, the team posted a fifth-place finish. The last time the Lancers finished in the top five was in 2018, and the only time Longwood has finished higher was in the 2013 season. A trio of golfers finished in the top 20, with Annabelle Jennings tying for 15th, Emma Landis tying for 18th and Peyton Schaffer tying for 20th.
During the season, the team had a trio of top five finishes. The team's best finish was a third-place result at the Kingsmill Intercollegiate, and Jennings also set a program record in the season's first round. She fired a four-under 212 at the William & Mary Fall Invitational that broke the program's best three-round score by two strokes.
In 2021-22, her team made history when freshman Ester Choi was named the Big South Women's Golf Freshman of the Year. The team finished seventh in the conference tournament.
During her second season, she guided the team to a sixth-place finish in the Big South with the program's lowest score in the conference tournament since joining the league in 2012-13.
Her first season at Longwood was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic that cancelled the spring season.
Dabule came to Longwood after building USC Beaufort into a national powerhouse, leading the Sandsharks to three consecutive NAIA National Championship appearances and back-to-back top-five national finishes in 2017 and 2018. Those NAIA postseason berths followed a run of three consecutive top-four performances in the stout Sun Conference, a league that along with USC Beaufort includes the 2018 and 2019 NAIA National Champions.
She took over a Longwood program that has one of the most decorated resumes in Longwood athletics history with three NCGA Division II National Championships, five national runner-up finishes and six Virginia State Championships – all under Longwood Hall of Fame coach and program founder Dr. Barbara Smith from 1966-92.
Dabule’s expertise in player development produced six All-Americans in her three years at USC Beaufort, including three-time All-American Blanca Porta and two-time honoree Franzi Knoetsch. Both Knoetsch and Porta emerged as two of NAIA’s best with both recording multiple top-20 finishes at the national championship tournaments.
Along with the individual accolades earned by USCB’s top performers, Dabule also led the Sandsharks to team-wide success in both the Sun Conference and at the national level. USCB finished in the top 10 in the final NAIA Coaches Poll all three years under her leadership, earned three straight top-four finishes in the Sun Conference Championship and reached the NAIA National Championship tournament all three years.
In her first season in 2017, Dabule propelled the Sandsharks to a program-record third-place finish at the NAIA National Championship, doing so after placing third in the Sun Conference Championship. USCB continued to assert itself atop the national standings the following year when Dabule led the program to a runner-up finish at the Sun Conference tournament and followed with a top-four result at the national championship. In 2019 that success continued with a fourth-place finish in conference and a 16th-place result at the national championships with a roster that included just one senior.
A native of Hilton Head, S.C., Dabule’s success as a coach followed a standout playing career at Winthrop and time as a professional on The Cactus Tour in Arizona. With the Eagles, she earned All-Big South honors in 2006, was an individual medalist at the Winthrop Intercollegiate and was a finalist for the NCAA’s “Freshman Impact” award in 2006. She helped Winthrop capture four consecutive third-place finishes in the Big South Championship tournament.
After graduating from Winthrop with her degree in sports management, she broke into the coaching ranks as the volunteer varsity girls’ golf coach at Hilton Head High School. During that time, she also co-founded and grew the Sea Pines Montessori School’s “Hooked On Golf” program, and served an assistant golf professional at Harbour Town Golf Links.
Dabule later pursued her passion for the game to the Midwest, serving as an assistant golf professional in the winters at Mirabel Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., and in the summers at Glenwild Golf Club & Spa in Park City, Utah, from 2012-15. In 2015, she got her break as a professional when she qualified for The Cactus Tour in Arizona.
