Lisa Tinkler will enter her third consecutive year as the women's head golf coach in 2018-19 and her 12th season overall leading the Drury program. She was named head coach of the program for a second time on July 26, 2016.
Tinkler helped start women’s golf and Drury in 2003 and quickly built the Panthers into a conference and national power. After a second place finish in the Heartland Conference in their inaugural season, the Panthers won the league the next year and finished eighth nationally in their second season in existence. In her nine years as head coach at Drury from 2003-2012, her teams won three conference championships, advanced to an NCAA-II regional tournament seven times and her 2007 squad finished fourth at the national championship tournament.
She was named the GLVC Coach of the Year twice and in 2007 was the NCAA-II East Region Coach of the Year. In her seven seasons coaching within the GLVC, her teams never finished lower than third place and she advanced an individual to the postseason in each of her nine years at the helm. Her 2011-12 team posted a team grade point average of 3.72, the highest of any GLVC team in any sport that year.
In her second stint with the Panthers, she guided her program to three second place finishes and six top five placements in 2017-18. The team also saw an individual championship with freshman Leisia Salazar winning the Lewis Flyers Fall Invitational at the Cogs Hill Drubsdread Course outside Chicago.
Tinkler left Drury in 2012 to become the head coach of the men’s and women’s golf teams at Loyola University in New Orleans where she revived a men’s program that had been dormant for 40 years and she helped start the women’s team. She coached the Loyola teams for two seasons and guided their women’s team to an NCAA national tournament bid in 2014 in just their second year in existence.
She is a Nike NG360 Golf Performance Specialist having earned that certification in 2013.
Tinkler is a graduate of Evangel University with a degree in business and social science education. Last year, she earned a Master’s degree from Drury University in educational leadership and administration.
Originally from Leawood, Kansas, Tinkler resides in Strafford with her husband, Casey. The couple has a son, two daughters and a granddaughter.
