Robbie Fields leads Jacksonville State to Golfweek Fall Challenge win

A picture still lives on Robbie Fields’ phone in which Fields, the head women’s golf coach and acting men’s coach at Jacksonville State University, stands behind a middle-school version of one of his current men’s players. The 26-year-old coach was a senior on the Hartselle (Alabama) High School golf team when senior Ross Napier was an eighth grader. The top of Napier’s head didn’t even reach Fields’ chin back then.

Needless to say, Fields is familiar with Napier’s game (and his family in general – Napier’s mother was Fields’ AP Environmental Science teacher). It seemed pretty poetic that Tuesday, in the final round of the 2022 Golfweek Fall Challenge at True Blue Golf Club in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Napier broke 70 for the first time as a collegian.

“He’s a guy who plays consistent golf, his short game is unbelievable and now he’s starting to strike the ball really well,” Fields noted.

For the most part, Fields was across the street at Caledonia Golf Club coaching the Gamecock women’s team (the men’s and women’s events run concurrently during the Golfweek Fall Challenge). He walked the par-5 ninth hole with Napier in the second round and watched Napier make double-bogey there.

“I told him I’d take the blame for messing him up,” Fields laughed.

It was a minor blip, though, because Jacksonville State won the event by two strokes over Wright State after reaching 28 under for 54 holes. Napier tied for seventh with teammate Eric Jansson when both finished the tournament at 7 under. Ultimately, Ryley Heath, a transfer from Calhoun Community College, dropped 30-foot birdie putts on Nos. 16 and 17 in the fall round to help the Gamecocks stay two shots about Wright State. Heath was T-3 individually at 11 under.

Coastal Carolina’s Trey Crenshaw won the individual title at 18 under, five shots better than Wright State’s Tyler Goecke.

There are old ties there for Fields, too. Heath also attended Hartselle High School, and Fields has known him since he was 8 years old. The clutch performance came as no surprise.

“It’s not that he was a surprise because he had a great summer, he’s playing some really great golf and it’s almost like he’s unphased,” Fields said. “I wouldn’t always tell somebody at that moment where we stood as a team … but he’s one where nothing really bothers him.”

Despite the familiar faces, Fields is very much in new territory. Three weeks into his new job as head…