College of Coastal Georgia Women's Golf

Johns led the Mariners to the Southern States Athletic Conference championship in 2014 which was the first league title for Coastal Georgia as an NAIA-member school. She was voted SSAC Coach of the Year by her peers. She has led Coastal Georgia to two appearances in the NAIA national championship tournament including the 2014 season when the Mariners finished sixth and then again in the 2016 season when the team finished tied for 15th. In her first season with the Mariners, Johns helped the CCGA women to a region championship and a sixth-place finish in the National Junior College Athletic Association national tournament. In all, Johns has led the Mariners to 12 tournament wins while her players have claimed 19 individual titles as well. Also with the Mariners, she has coached five All-American selections, eight all-conference players and seven conference all-academic team members. Johns is a native of Baxley, Ga., where she was a standout golfer for Appling County High School. Her high school team won state championships twice in her four years. One of those years was 2002 when Johns finished as the individual runner-up in the state tournament. She also won the individual region championship twice in four seasons during her prep career. Following high school, Johns received a golf scholarship to Berry College in Rome, where she became a four-time NAIA All-American. Johns won the NAIA individual championship as a sophomore in 2004 when she set the lowest four-round score of 293 (72-72-75-74) in NAIA history. She is the only player from the Berry women's and men's teams to ever win the national individual title. She won 10 times in four years at Berry with three regional titles and also a conference championship included among those victories. Since finishing school, Johns has been inducted into the Berry College Hall of Fame. After finishing her college career, she played professionally on the LPGA Futures Tour in 2008-09. She took golf lessons from Mike Cook, who works as a Sea Island teaching instructor in addition to coaching at Coastal Georgia.  

Nicole (Wildes) Johns enters her 16th season at the helm of the women's golf program. Johns started as an assistant for both the men’s and women’s teams prior to the 2010-11 season and was then elevated to the women’s golf head coach position before the 2013-14 season. Since taking over, Johns has helped the Mariners to 14 Tournament wins, five NAIA Tournament appearances (2014, '16, '19, '21, '25) and two NAIA Individual National Championship appearances (Sarah Gilliard: 2015, Madelyn Taylor 2024).  Johns has coached up six NAIA All-Americans, two SSAC Conference Player of the Year, and 18 All-Conference (SSAC & SUN) players. Johns was recognized for the job she did in her first season as the head coach, winning the SSAC Coach of the Year in 2014 after her team won the 2014 SSAC Conference Championship. The Mariners have excelled off the course as well under Johns. She has coached 28 Conference All-Academic players and 14 WGCA All-American Scholars. Her 2016-17 and 2018-19 teams were also recognized as NAIA Scholar-Teams for there combined GPA. During the 2024-25 season, Johns led her team back to the NAIA National Tournament for the first time since 2021, while also coaching Carlin Paulk to a top 30 finish at the national tournament.  The 2023-24 season saw Johns coach freshman standout Madelyn Taylor who won two tournaments in her first collegiate season while posting a third place finish in the Sun Conference Tournament. For her efforts, Taylor was invited as an individual to participate in the 2024 NAIA National Tournament held at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, Illinois. In the 2022-23 season, Johns' squad had three top-three finishes and had two golfers, Kristen Crooms and Carlin Paulk, rank in the top 150 in terms of NAIA Women's Golfers. In her first season as the coach, the Mariners won four tournaments including the SSAC Conference Championship and finished as the runners-up in three other tournaments on their way to a sixth place finish at the NAIA National Tournament where they had two players, Sarah Gilliard and Christian Liggin, finish in the top 10. Before joining Coastal Georgia, Johns played on the LPGA Futures Tour in 2008-09. This came off the heals of her dominant collegiate career at Berry College where she was a four-time NAIA All-American and the 2004 NAIA Individual Champion after posting a then-record 293 score through four rounds. Johns remains the only golfer in Berry's history (men's or women's) to win an individual championship. Johns was inducted into the Berry College Hall of Fame and is well known in the Georgia golf community. Personal - Married to Clay Johns, and the couple has a daughter named Sidney and a son, Noah. - Currently a golf instructor at The King and Prince Beach and Golf Resort

Cook has guided the Mariners to two national championships and numerous tournament titles while building the Coastal Georgia program into an NAIA powerhouse. In the 2013-14 season, Cook guided the Coastal Georgia men to their first NAIA national championship, which also was the first national crown in the history of the school. The Mariners won five times during the season. In 2014-15, the Mariners won a second consecutive NAIA national title under Cook's guidance. He also led the team to eight wins in 10 total tournaments while producing five all-conference players and also five All-Americans. Cook, a longtime teaching instructor at the renowned Sea Island Golf Club, led both Coastal Georgia teams to instant success in their inaugural seasons. Both squads won their respective championships in the Georgia College Athletic Association and advanced to the National Junior College Athletic Association national championship tournaments, where the Coastal Georgia. men finished fourth and the women took sixth. Cook was named the NJCAA Coach of the Year for Region 17 after the 2011 season. In his time with the Coastal Georgia men, Cook has led the team to 23 tournament championships while Mariners players have also claimed 17 individual victories. Cook has produced 11 NAIA All-Americans, 17 all-conference selections and seven conference all-academic team members. Three CCGA players have won SSAC Player of the Year honors. Cook was named the NAIA Coach of the Year after the two national championship seasons and also received the Dave Williams NAIA Coach of the Year award from the Golf Coaches Association of America after those seasons. He has been named SSAC Coach of the Year twice as well. Cook was also chosen by the GCAA to coach the 2016 U.S. Arnold Palmer Cup team in England. Cook started with Sea Island as a teaching instructor in 1991. He was selected among the top 15 teachers in Georgia by Golf Digest and has been named teacher of the year by the Georgia PGA East Chapter three times. For several years, Cook had the responsibility of overseeing Sea Island's junior golf program, and in 2007, the Georgia PGA named him Junior Golf Leader. Cook has worked with players of all ages and skill-levels, including top junior, collegiate and professional players. Cook is a graduate of the University of Georgia, where he was a member of the Bulldogs golf team. He helped Georgia to the SEC championship as a senior during the 1982-83 season and was named All-American and first-team All-SEC that year. He played professionally from 1983-86 and was a member of the South African PGA Tour in 1984. Cook won the Georgia PGA championship in 1998 at Sea Island and won the Georgia PGA Assistant Professionals championship in 1992 in Peachtree City. He is married to wife Lori and they have a son Michael and daughter Madelyn.