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Sara Doell Headshot 2025-26

Sara Doell

EDUCATION:
  • Penn State - 1996-00
YEARS AT SAN FRANCISCO:
  • May 2017 - Present
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS AT SAN FRANCISCO:
  • In a successful 2024-25 season, Doell led the team to set the 18-, 36-, and 54-hole records on their path to shooting 41 under par at the Clash at Boulder Creek, winning by 14 shots.
  • Riana Mission and Eva Pett combined for three individual titles throughout the campaign, with Mission earning two wins at the Leadership and Golf Invitational and The Molly, while Pett secured her first-ever individual title at the Clash of Boulder Creek.
  • Jolie Chee tied the 18-hole record, shooting a 64 in the final round of the Clash at Boulder Creek while Eva Pett set a school 54-hole record, shooting 15-under par in the same tournament.
  • Guided Eva Pett to a tie for first place at the WCC Championship – the lowest finish for a women’s golfer since 2001.
  • Led Riana Mission to her third Individual NCAA Regional appearance of her career, finishing the Norman Regional in a tie for 32nd place and third among all individual qualifiers.
  • Riana Mission and Eva Pett earned All-WCC honors with five WCC All-Academic selections - Riana Mission, Eva Pett, Yvonne Shang, Jolie Chee, and Rodaylin Mina while the team finished with a 3.86 GPA for the year.
  • Under her guidance on the Hilltop, the Dons have earned 13 WCC All-Conference honorees and 23 WCC All-Academic honorees as Doell also collected her fourth Coach of the Year award (Three in the Big East and one in the WCC) in 2021-22.
  • During the 2023-24 season, San Francisco earned nine top-10 team finishes highlighted by a second-place finish at The Clash of Boulder Creek. In that tournament, Riana Mission took first place with an 11-under-par 205. 
  • Doell also guided Mission to the NCAA Cle Elum Regional as an individual qualifier, her second appearance as an individual qualifier, where she finished in a tie for 24th place out of 66 competitors. 
  • In 2021-22, Doell was named WCC Co-Coach of the Year alongside Pepperdine's Laurie Gibbs as she earned her first coaching honor in the West Coast Conference. Continuing to grow her program, San Francisco earned its first tournament victory under Doell when the Dons finished first at the Valley Invitational on Feb. 7-8, 2022. 
  • In the abbreviated spring 2021 season, San Francisco finished fourth overall at the West Coast Conference Championships, which included three Dons finishing inside the top 10 (Hannah Zeman, Joan Soewondo, and Annika Borrelli).
  • The 2019-20 season proved to be a historic season for a program on the rise. San Francisco competed in seven tournaments and finished in the top 10 in all but one. The Dons finished the season with a team average of 299.6. It marks the second time in the Doell era the Dons have averaged under 300 as a team.  In early February, the team boasted a GolfStat ranking of No. 63 in the nation. The Dons finished the year ranked 71st among all Division I teams, completing a major goal for the program.
  • The Dons put together arguably one of their toughest spring schedules in recent memory during the 2018-19 season. San Francisco competed in five events during the spring, with every tournament featuring a field that had numerous top-50 teams in the Golfstat rankings.
  • Highlighting the Dons’ run in the 2019 spring season was their finish at the West Coast Conference Championships. A hard push in the final round saw the Dons finish in third place with two golfers cracking the top 10. Annika Borrelli led the team, who finished third. The third-place individual finish by Borrelli was the top finish by a freshman at the tournament. In doing so, she earned WCC All-Conference honors. Joining her in the top 10 was Samantha Gong at eight, her first career top-10 finish.
  • In 2017-18, the Dons competed in 10 events and finished in the top 10 in nine of them. That same year, the Dons had two individual tournament winners, beat five top 50 programs, achieved a national ranking of No. 80, and earned three All-WCC honorees.
  • Seniors Vanessa Ha and Emily Laskin were joined by Gong as the trio earned WCC All-WCC honors. It was the third all-conference honor for Ha in her career, becoming the first Don since Christine Stockton did the same from 2008-10. The three all-conference winners were the most by USF since the 2010 season.
  • Laskin and senior Kimberly Liu earned WCC All-Academic honors with Laskin being named the co-winner of the #WCCREPRESENT award.
OTHER CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:
  • Before her time on the Hilltop, Doell, who was the first head coach in Seton Hall history after the program was launched in 2010, led the Pirates to three consecutive Big East titles and subsequent NCAA Regional appearances in 2014, 2015, and 2016.
  • She is a three-time Big East Coach of the Year and in 2015 was named the LPGA's Northeast Coach of the Year and National Coach of the Year.
  • Doell led Seton Hall to its first Big East Championship in 2014 – four years after the program’s inception – as the Pirates claimed the conference title with a seven-stroke victory to earn the program's first-ever trip to the NCAA Regionals. Seton Hall won back-to-back conference titles with a thrilling one-stroke victory in 2015.
PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS:
  • As a player at Penn State from 1996-2000, Doell had numerous top-10 finishes and served as the Nittany Lions’ team captain as a senior. She also won the Women's Golf Academic and Athletic Achievement Award, the Mary Kennedy Zierke Award, and the Penn State Spiritus Lionus Academic Achievement Award. 
  • Doell won the 1998 New York State Amateur Championship and won a pair of Women's Rochester District Amateur titles in 1997 and 2000.
OTHER NOTABLES:
  • Doell, a native of Rochester, N.Y., attended Gates-Chili High School and was inducted into its athletic hall of fame in September of 2016. 
  • Graduated from Penn State in 2000 with a degree in media studies. 
  • A Lifetime Member of the LPGA. 
  • Became a CLCC life coach. 
  • She is the author of the Amazon best-selling book "Your Future Self Will Thank You" as well as “Next Time Leave Me on the Floor.“
  • A member of the WCC Mental Health Advisory Committee.
  • Has run seven half marathons, including the 2018 San Francisco Half Marathon and 2024 Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Half Marathon to fundraise for the women's golf program. 
  • Doell resides in San Francisco with her wife Caitlin. Â