By: Evan O'Kelly, Associate Commissioner for Communications
BOULDER CITY, Nev. – The vibes are immaculate when it comes to
Nick Ennis.
He’s the kind of guy you want to talk to after you shoot the best round of your life – or the worst. It’s hard not to walk away from a conversation with him without a grin – his charisma and worry-free attitude invoke a sense of calm and positivity in those he interacts with.
Add in the fact that he is one of the best golfers in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference and he becomes the exact kind of teammate you’d expect to find on the NCAA-championship bound Western Washington Vikings. “Once you get out there, you can have a plan until you get punched in the face,” Ennis said regarding his analysis of Boulder Creek Golf Course – the site of next week’s NCAA Division II Championships.
Never having set foot on the links doesn’t bother Ennis one bit, and the magnitude of it being the biggest tournament of the college season won’t change how he prepares himself either. “I will maybe look at pictures of what the course looks like, but I really find my preparation in the practice rounds and playing the course,” he said. “Playing the course like a normal round is how I get to know it, then maybe I’ll hit a few chips from certain spots. But I’m practicing from where I want to be.”
2026 NCAA Men’s Golf Championships
May 18-22, 2026 | Boulder Creek Golf Course | Boulder City, Nevada
The Western Washington Vikings won the 2026 NCAA West/South Central Regional Championships in Stockton, Calif., May 7-9, securing the program’s 11th spot into the national championships. The event kicks off on Monday morning, with a live leaderboard
available online here.
It’s a gameplan that has worked time and time again for the junior from Everett, Wash., who will be playing his sixth collegiate postseason championship tournament next week. Ennis played a role in each of WWU’s trophies it has collected so far this year, shooting a 3-under-par 68 in the second round of the GNAC Championships in April and carding a final-round even-par 72 last week in California to help secure the program’s second-ever NCAA West/South Central Regional Championship. His stroke average of 72.8 this season ranks fifth in the conference and he is a top-30 all-time GNAC golfer at 73.87 strokes per round in his three-year career.
‘The preparation stuff carries over off the course too,” said Ennis, who is a communications major at WWU. “It’s all about getting my body right and staying up to date with school. A small thing that eases you up is knowing you are doing well in the classroom – that you’re caught up and in touch with your professors. The communications program here has been great and my studies have been good for me. I really like what I’m doing.”
Ennis will be competing in his sixth postseason championship event at next week's NCAA Championships (Photo: Shawn Toner).
Now set to represent his university on the largest stage, it almost seems unfathomable that five years ago Ennis had no competitive rounds of golf under his belt in his life. Like his teammate
Peter Dionne-Yahr, Ennis grew up with a love for baseball where his lanky, athletic body suited him perfectly to play shortstop and centerfield. Although his family held a membership at their local country club, Ennis didn’t start becoming serious about his golf game until it became nearly the only activity available during the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was the only thing to do then, so I decided to commit my time to it,” Ennis said on discovering his passion for golf. “I started playing competitively in 2021, and right away I kind of knew it was for me. It came natural and wasn’t hard to devote my time to because it was so fun for me.”
Ennis possessed the rare ability to embrace and even enjoy the struggle associated with learning a sport with perhaps the most difficult combination of mental and physical ability. His baseball-honed hand-eye coordination no doubt gave him a leg up in developing his ball striking, but results in the form of good scores did not happen overnight. For many new golfers, a lack of rapid reward is enough to drive them away from the game or at the very least leave them wandering tepidly on a plateau. But not Ennis. “I fell in love with trying to get better at it and I fell in love with that process of knowing this is going to take time,” he said. “It took awhile before the results came, but I liked the challenge of it and trying to do something that is hard. My athleticism has done me good in my life, and the mechanics part didn’t come too hard. I was more unorthodox when it came to the fundamentals, but I loved doing it my way. It’s so easy to get caught up in the results, but I just loved the idea of being out there competing.”
Ennis doesn’t worry too much about his scores or statistics, but administratively to his team they mean the world. When the Vikings won the Kevin Bishop Invitational at The Home Course in DuPont, Wash., at the outset of the 2025-26 season, Ennis carded a career-best three-round score of 4-under-par 212 (73-66-73) to tie for the best performance on the team. That was just four months after he turned in a pair of par-or-better rounds at the 2025 NCAA regional championships, where he carded a 1-over-par 217 (75-72-70) and got better as the tournament wore on. Evidenced by his collegiate-career best round of 6-under-par 65 on Feb. 19, 2024, the Vikings know they have a player in their lineup who can turn in a tournament-changing score at any given moment. “The most important thing to me is how impactful my rounds are to the team; a good example of that was shooting even par the last day at regionals,” Ennis replied when asked about rounds that have stood out to him. “There have been times in tournaments where I have started rough but really brought it back and those are my best type of rounds. Battling back when you’re facing a little adversity shows grit and it’s what I take the most pride in. It’s about how level-headed you can stay out there even when it’s not going your way.”
Ennis's bag of 14 clubs.
| What's In The Bag? - Nick Ennis |
| Driver |
PING |
| 3-Wood |
TaylorMade |
| 2-Iron |
TaylorMade |
| Irons (4-through-P) |
TaylorMade P7MB |
| Wedges (50, 54, 60) |
TaylorMade Milled Grind |
| Putter |
Scotty Cameron Blade |
What club do you feel strongest with? “Big dog’s gotta eat, man! That has been my strength throughout my golf career – I have always been a decent driver of the golf ball. My driver is where it’s at; it’s a weapon I like to think.”
Books have been written surrounding golf club specs and how minute differences between how certain irons are forged impact everything from carry to spin rate based on the player’s stature, mechanics and swing speed. None of that matters to Ennis – he keeps it simple. “I don’t tinker with equipment – I find what I like, and I’m going to use it,” Ennis said. “I bought my first set of clubs this last year, but other than that I have been rockin’ what I have been getting handed down to me. I have found a way to play well with them.”
It’s not about the brush; it’s about the artist. That’s Nick Ennis, to a tee.
Ennis attacks his rounds with confidence in his abilities and trusting the routine that has led him into the WWU starting lineup (Photo: Jeff Kettering).