- Westminster's men's golf team posted a 3.478 GPA to win its fifth RMAC Brechler Award, the conference's honor for the top team grade point average in each of its 22 sponsored sports.
- Westminster Men's Golf connect back to Westminster University and the wider golf picture.
- The story is backed by 4 sources and a visible last-verified date.
July 1, 2026
September 22, 2026
4 min / 841 words
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Not every winning streak shows up in a box score. Westminster men's golf just extended one of its most impressive runs off the course: the program earned its fifth RMAC Brechler Award for the 2025-26 academic year, posting a 3.478 team grade point average — the best of any men's golf program in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.
The Brechler Award is the RMAC's award for the top team GPA in each sport. Named for former conference commissioner Paul W. Brechler, it goes to the team with the highest grade point average in each of the league's 22 sponsored sports. Winning it once is a strong year in the classroom. Winning it a fifth time is a program identity.
What the award actually measures
The Brechler is not a participation ribbon. The award uses each team's grades from the full 2025-26 academic year, and it goes to the single highest mark in each sport across the entire conference. For Westminster's men's golfers, a 3.478 GPA means they out-studied every other RMAC men's golf roster over a full academic year — while also traveling, training, and competing.
Head coach Denise Larson's program has now done it five times, which points to something more durable than one strong recruiting class. Sustained academic excellence at that level usually reflects how a program recruits, what it expects, and how it structures the balance between golf and coursework.
Five is the number that separates this from a good-year story. A single Brechler Award can turn on one class of high achievers cycling through a roster. Winning it five times means the standard has survived roster turnover, coaching demands, and the ordinary pull of travel and competition — the academic result has become part of how the program operates rather than a happy accident. In a conference with 22 sponsored sports and dozens of teams chasing the same honor in their own disciplines, being the best men's golf classroom in the RMAC repeatedly is a genuine distinction.
The award, and where it sits in the RMAC
The Brechler Award carries the name of Paul W. Brechler, a former commissioner of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, and each sport gets one winner — the roster with the highest cumulative grade point average across the entire conference for that sport over the full academic year. There is no partial credit and no participation tier; a team either posts the top GPA in its sport or it does not. Westminster's men's golfers cleared that bar with a 3.478, better than every other RMAC men's golf program for 2025-26.
Two more academic honors in the same year
The Brechler was not the only RMAC academic award to reach Westminster golf in 2025-26. In April, Aiden Pavey won the RMAC Men's Golf Summit Award, which goes to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative GPA competing at the championship site. Pavey, then a sophomore, carried a 3.97 grade-point average in finance.
The women's program added its own honor in May. Ashley Lam was named the 2025-26 RMAC Women's Golf Academic Player of the Year with a 3.95 GPA, and four more Griffins made the conference's academic honor roll. Both golf teams share a director of golf, Denise Larson.
Westminster is a private, Division II member of the RMAC that lists 13 NCAA teams. Its two golf programs now account for a team award, an individual championship-site award and a conference academic player of the year from a single academic year.
The recognition is public and formal
The award was announced on July 1, 2026. Westminster's release said recipients would be formally recognized at the 2026 RMAC Hall of Fame and Awards Banquet on Thursday, July 9, at COS City Hub in Colorado Springs, which puts the honor on the conference's official awards program.
What the award means for recruits
For recruits and their families — especially at a Division II program where the student-athlete balance is the whole pitch — a repeated academic honor is a real recruiting asset. It tells a prospective golfer that the program can develop them competitively without sacrificing the degree. A high team GPA sustained over five award-winning years is evidence, not a slogan: Westminster's golfers have proven the balance is achievable there. In that sense, the fifth Brechler Award is a scoreboard of its own.
Key facts:
- Award: RMAC Brechler Award, 2025-26 — Westminster men's golf's fifth
- What it recognizes: The highest team GPA in each of the RMAC's 22 sponsored sports
- The number: 3.478 team grade point average, tops among RMAC men's golf programs
- Coach: Denise Larson
- Recognition: Announced July 1, 2026; recipients scheduled to be recognized at the RMAC Hall of Fame and Awards Banquet on July 9, 2026, in Colorado Springs
- Same academic year: Aiden Pavey won the RMAC Men's Golf Summit Award (3.97 GPA); Ashley Lam was RMAC Women's Golf Academic Player of the Year (3.95)
- Context: Westminster is a private Division II member of the RMAC; its athletics department lists 13 NCAA teams
- Follow the 2026-27 season: Westminster men's golf team page
