A&M men's golf's Brian Kortan, Phichaksn Maichon recap 2024-25 season

PING All-American Phichaksn Maichon capped off a successful 2024-25 campaign by finishing as the runner-up at the NCAA Championship, the program's best performance ever. Head coach Brian Kortan and his star golfer joined TexAgs Live to chat all about it.

Key notes from Phichaksn Maichon interview

• Obviously, like Coach Kortan said, we had a tough fall, and the first event we took a hit. It was since, and like he said, when we went to California, we played for the team instead of individually. It's nice to see the guys get better, and they all practice a lot. I like to practice hard, which is what I like, and I try to get better every day. It showed up at the end when we made it to the SEC finals and had a good run at nationals. We kept our heads down and kept the momentum going.
   
• I just like being on a golf course. I wouldn't call it intense, but I kind of spend my time on the course and figure stuff out that's relaxing to me.
   
• I had played badly in the fall. I was thinking of the result before it happened. Two coaches put a reality check on me. It didn't matter what I was doing at that time. Ii try to keep my head straight in the spring and worked out better. I didn't expect much and to go for  the best run on the board today.
   
• I may have sugarcoated it, but I hate losing and not winning tournaments. It's hard to win, but it drives me even more. It’s definitely hard because I'm an only child, and my mom and dad want to see me. We knew that if I played good I would stay all summer. Probably leave after my Korn Ferry Tour season is over, play some Asian tours, come for two weeks and come back. We knew it would be tough to start, but there are a lot more opportunities out here. I'm not going anywhere else because this place feels like home.
   
• I got recruited by Kortan and J.T. Higgins early in my sophomore year. I was on my visit to Arizona and about to commit. My dad didn’t like the coach that much, but I liked the facilities. Then, Higgins called right when I came back from a visit and set up an official visit around junior year. I came in and really liked the place, and everyone was so nice. My dad loved it, and we had our own facility, and it was very convenient to practice. He wanted me to play with Sam Bennett because he was really good. Everyone who comes out to A&M has a good chance to be pro, and he wanted me to see what it was like being over there. The place was sweet.
   
• I would not have this many opportunities without the Aggie network and culture. It's nice to have guys who don’t care who you play and always support you no matter how good you are. It's nice to see that and all four years.
   
• When I came to college, I was more robotic, and everything had to be perfect. I was playing the range, not the course. Bennett didn’t teach me, but I learned from watching. He's the definition of how you can score the quickest. If I hit the fairway greens every single time, I'm going to play good, but that's not how it works out there. You are going to make a mistake, and it's how you can play the next shot. He has a good attitude, and he kind of leaves a bad shot behind and plays it forward. It was good to see.
   
• I leave this Monday, then go to Wichita, out in the middle of nowhere and come back and reset. I'll play six weeks in a row and grind for points. Can’t really take a week off, hopefully enough for the playoffs.

Key notes from Brian Kortan interview

• The season played out a little short in the end. We took a lot of lumps in the fall. Starting in January, we took a trip to California and played Stanford in a match. It was a real galvanizing moment where the guys spent time together and the guys dug into each other. It wasn’t intended for that, but I think they became a really good team from those four or five days over there. Everyone got a little better.
   
• In the national championship, we didn’t finish a couple of rounds the way we needed to. We need to be really good in those stretches. We are playing with very experienced guys. If we were to get over that hump a little at the end, we'd get further in the national championship. It helps when you have a guy driving the bus like Maichon in terms of Aggie golf, probably one of the best seasons we’ve had.
   
• I was really focused on getting the gym rat version of golfers. Our guys love to get out there and work with some really talented awesome guys. They like the work. They like the grind. They like to help each other get better. It also makes a difference when your best players are your hardest workers.
   
• In general, the way we went about it was keeping the main thing the main thing. Maichon’s golf talent was raised, and it was a good lesson for the rest of the guys. Aaron Pounds, Wheaton Ennis, and Michael Heidelbaugh were great. To do these things together and have a guy who showed up every week and led the charge was nice.
   
• Every kid is different. Maichon is the guy who, if you tell him to hit a thousand golf balls, wouldn’t bat an eye. I think that’s kind of how he learned the game. His time spent was in such big blocks, like you need to go putt for two hours, he would go putt for two hours. And then there’s guys like Sam Bennett, who you’d ask him to go put for 30 minutes and be like, really? That’s a long time.
   
• To watch Maichon come from where he's come from. There’s no wind in Thailand, and then we go play Aaron Hills for his first tournament, and the wind blows like 100 mph. For that first bit of the semester Matt Fast walked with him a lot to teach him about the golf game not that he could not do it, it’s just learning how to find numbers. The journey becomes opening your eyes to the game and then accepting the responsibility of being really good at what you do. That can be difficult because that responsibility becomes you honing your craft and elevating yourself. It’s fun to watch. The other part was that Maichon was skinny, kind of not as big of a dude as he is now. The physicality is another part of what we do and he embraced it all which is one of the ways that got him to where he is now.