After change in approach, FSU's Jack Whaley closes year with a bang at NCAAs

Florida State was led by somewhat of a surprising golfer at the National Championships at Omni La Costa last week.

Jack Whaley, who was the only Seminole to make the third-round cut and play the final day, finished in a tie for 14th place.

Whaley had an interesting journey to get to that point, having transferred to Florida State from an NAIA school, Dalton State, last summer.

The Doncaster, England, native was considered the best player in NAIA in 2025. He won the individual national title and five total events, and never finished outside the top 10.

Moving up to Florida State was obviously a huge jump up in competition, and Whaley admits it wasn’t easy at first.

“I think the biggest thing for me was adapting to the strengths of fields,” the Florida State junior told Warchant. “Instead of having five to 10 good players, there’s 100. It took me a while to build back my confidence and show who I am as a player.”

Whaley’s first season in Tallahassee wasn’t smooth sailing to start. In the fall, his best finish was ninth at the Fighting Illini Invitational, and he had only one other result in the top 20.

This start of the spring wasn’t much different, as he only had one top-20 finish in the first three events, and it came in the Seminoles’ home event at Seminole Legacy.

But Florida State head coach Trey Jones said it was obvious Whaley had the talent to perform much better. He just needed to learn to adapt to the mental challenge of facing stiffer competition.

“Any time you’re stepping up a level of play, it could be from high school, it could be from junior golf or whatever … the depth of the players is mainly the issue,” Jones said of Whaley’s first tournament of the spring, when he finished tied for 48th a 5-over par. “I think he was even-par for his first two rounds or something near that, and he was in 31st place. So, now he puts a little pressure on himself going out the final round to go out and try to prove something and just had a poor day executing, you know, earning shots and then put pressure on his putter from there. So, it is an adjustment.”

The Valspar Collegiate in March was another opportunity to see the highs and lows of Whaley’s game. He opened with a 6-under round of 65, but then followed it up with a 5-over 76.

That is when Jones and the Florida State staff decided they needed to change the approach with their promising transfer.

Instead of expecting Whaley to work through his rounds the way he would with a veteran on the team, Jones started walking with him through his tournaments — the way he typically does with first-year players.

They first tried that approach at the Lewis Chitengwa Memorial in Charlotteville, Va., and it paid off immediately. Whaley finished at 8-under and tied for sixth place, with rounds of 65, 73 and 67.

“That was huge,” Jones told Warchant. “I mean he’s been looking really good, and it’s been a head-scratcher. Finally, we just sat down and said even though he’s a junior, he’s still a first-year player for us, and we gave him a little bit too much credit early on in his decision making because he’s older. We just found out that his mental processes and the way he was approaching things were very conducive, so made it a project to almost treat him like a first-year player. And I walked all 54 holes with him this week, and he executed them well, and called all the shots for him and he executed them well and did a really good job.”

The rest was history, as Whaley finished in the top 10 in Florida State’s remaining tournaments — he placed eighth in the ACC Tournament and seventh in the Columbus regional — before going to nationals.

“Coach Jones has walked the past four events with me, and he has helped me massively with my confidence and trusting my ability,” Whaley said. “I think the last four events, finishing top-10 three times and top 15 at nationals, has demonstrated my player ability. Without having Coach, that would not have happened.”

SIGN UP: Join Warchant’s FSU Community for 50% off today

Talk about this story with other die-hard FSU football fans on the Tribal Council.