Photo by: UT Martin Sports Information
Patience Key To Xoinis’ Run Through OVC Championship And Into Upcoming NCAA Regional
5/7/2025 8:09:00 AM | Golf
MARTIN, Tenn. – Jonathan Xoinis could tell that something just wasn't right.
If you were to take a quick glance at the results of the TSU Big Blue Intercollegiate on April 7-8, you'd see that the University of Tennessee at Martin redshirt senior recorded his best finish of the season up to that point – a sixth-place effort in his final stroke-play tuneup before the Ohio Valley Conference Championships.
But Xoinis' swing off the tee was off. It had been a lingering issue. And Xoinis was going to work like crazy to fix it because he didn't want the 2025 OVC Championships to be the last tournament of his collegiate career.
"I had a two-way miss going with the driver so it was difficult to have confidence stepping over the ball," Xoinis said. "That week at TSU, I tried to get less technical with it and just pick a spot and swing. Wherever the ball went, I would go find it and do it again. I really just tried to simplify the game and it worked well. So before the OVC Championships I checked a few things in my setup and I was able to swing very confidently with the driver. I did the exact same thing as I did at TSU and I found myself continuously giving myself great looks at birdie."
The rest is history. Xoinis cashed in on 14 of those birdie opportunities on the challenging Dalhousie Golf Club in Cape Girardeau, Mo. and when all was said and done, he would proudly have a new "best finish" of the season.
Xoinis started his OVC Championships with a career-best 68 (-4) in Round 1 before carding a 70 (-2) in Round 2. An even-par 72 performance in the third round led to an overall tally of 210 (-6) through 54 holes of stroke play, tying for co-medalist honors with Little Rock's Rhett South. The win – the first of Xoinis' Skyhawk career – sealed a postseason fate as the league's automatic qualifier and UT Martin's third individual participant in the program's Division I NCAA Regional history (since 1992-93).
"Going into each round of stroke play, my mindset was exactly the same – trust my process and preparation as well as take it one shot at a time," Xoinis said. "My goal to start the tournament was just to play my hardest for my teammates so we can have a shot at the match play round on Wednesday. I knew at the turn on Tuesday's last round of stroke play that we were definitely advancing so I shifted to trying to win the tournament but I still kept my strategy the same. That really paid off well in the end because I got up-and-down on both 17 and 18 to win the tournament."
It was a moment that Xoinis had literally envisioned well in advance. Going into the 2025 OVC Championships, he had already navigated Dalhousie Golf Club in nine competitive stroke-play rounds plus a pair of match-play rounds at two previous OVC Championships (2022 and 2023) as well as the Golfweek Collegiate Kickoff tournament in September 2023.
"Having played the course possibly the most out of anyone in the field was definitely an advantage," Xoinis said. "I knew the course demanded patience and I was ready to be patient. I also already knew what clubs I would be hitting off each tee beforehand so that made the preparation a bit more intentional. I would visualize tee shots on the driving range in the weeks leading up to the event."
Being crowned as an OVC champion with a chance to compete for a national championship at next week's NCAA Regional is a fitting end for Xoinis, who began playing golf at the age of 11 in his hometown of Chattanooga, Tenn.
"I slowly started playing golf more often through middle school and that's when I fell in love with it," Xoinis said. "It became a reality that I could play college golf my junior year of high school when I started seeing some good results in tournaments."
While various universities came calling during the recruiting process, Xoinis was drawn to the engineering program at UT Martin. Then-head coach Jerry Carpenter and his assistant Austin Swafford – now in his fifth season at the helm as Skyhawk head coach – knew they were getting a steal when Xoinis inked his National Letter of Intent in November 2019.
"On the golf side of things, I knew I would find success at UT Martin with our on-campus Rhodes Golf Center facility and the wide selection of courses that we play," Xoinis said. "I can say confidently that we have the best practice facilities out of any team in our conference. These last five years here have really shaped me into the person I am today. Coach Swafford has done a great job of building a culture that is centered around being a good person and a good teammate that will lead you to becoming a great player."
Xoinis took advantage of a redshirt year in 2020-21 and turned that into an OVC All-Newcomer campaign the following season. He played in all 13 tournaments and was an integral part of the program's 2022 OVC championship squad, finishing with the best score of any Skyhawk (221, +5) at the NCAA Regional in Norman, Okla.
After taking part in 11 events in 2022-23, Xoinis shaved nearly 2.5 strokes off his scoring average during his junior campaign in 2023-24. His 208 (-8) in the Grover Page Classic was tied for the best cumulative score by any UT Martin representative in the 20-year history of the tournament, leading to his second career OVC Golfer of the Week honor. He was also one of just three males to be named an OVC Scholar-Athlete, considered the highest individual award that any OVC student-athlete can receive.
Xoinis carried that momentum into a remarkable 2024-25 season. He dialed up a career-high 94 birdies and a pair of eagles – including a hole-in-one in Round 2 of the Grover Page Classic on Sept. 17. His OVC Championships medalist triumph resulted in a career-best 72.8 stroke average – ranking just outside the top-10 in the OVC this season and barely behind the 10 best scoring averages in the Skyhawks' NCAA Division I Era.
For his collegiate career, Xoinis boasts four top-five finishes, six top-10 performances and 13 top-20 efforts. He played 137 combined rounds of stroke or match play and delivered a countable score in 83.3 percent (95 of 114) of his appearances in the UT Martin starting lineup.
With that said, the biggest secret to Xoinis' success may be off the course as he had no shortage of backing at the 2025 OVC Championships or any other tournament throughout his collegiate career. Moments after the final hole of stroke play at the 2025 OVC Championships, Xoinis was swarmed by his fiancée, his family and his future in-laws as they all soaked in the momentous occasion.
"I have a very good support system and it was so special to have everybody there at this year's OVC Tournament," Xoinis said. "After I walked off the last hole I went and gave my fiancée a big hug – I always knew that if I won a tournament, that was the first thing I wanted to do. My Dad has come to nearly every event I have played in college – he is the reason that I got into golf so it was great to have him, my mother and brother as well as my fiancée's parents all in Cape Girardeau."
Xoinis learned of his NCAA Regional destination last week as he will be one of 75 golfers to tee it up at the Auburn University Club in Auburn, Ala. on May 12-14. Even though that will be a near-three-week layoff since Xoinis found himself on a golf course in an official capacity, he has been keeping himself sharp.
"I have split my time roughly in half between practice at our facility and getting on a course to play," Xoinis said. "I prefer to practice in a competitive way – that could mean playing an on-course match or just doing a wedge game at our facility with a teammate. I'm looking forward to playing a really nice course with the best college golfers in the country."
If you were to take a quick glance at the results of the TSU Big Blue Intercollegiate on April 7-8, you'd see that the University of Tennessee at Martin redshirt senior recorded his best finish of the season up to that point – a sixth-place effort in his final stroke-play tuneup before the Ohio Valley Conference Championships.
But Xoinis' swing off the tee was off. It had been a lingering issue. And Xoinis was going to work like crazy to fix it because he didn't want the 2025 OVC Championships to be the last tournament of his collegiate career.
"I had a two-way miss going with the driver so it was difficult to have confidence stepping over the ball," Xoinis said. "That week at TSU, I tried to get less technical with it and just pick a spot and swing. Wherever the ball went, I would go find it and do it again. I really just tried to simplify the game and it worked well. So before the OVC Championships I checked a few things in my setup and I was able to swing very confidently with the driver. I did the exact same thing as I did at TSU and I found myself continuously giving myself great looks at birdie."
The rest is history. Xoinis cashed in on 14 of those birdie opportunities on the challenging Dalhousie Golf Club in Cape Girardeau, Mo. and when all was said and done, he would proudly have a new "best finish" of the season.
Xoinis started his OVC Championships with a career-best 68 (-4) in Round 1 before carding a 70 (-2) in Round 2. An even-par 72 performance in the third round led to an overall tally of 210 (-6) through 54 holes of stroke play, tying for co-medalist honors with Little Rock's Rhett South. The win – the first of Xoinis' Skyhawk career – sealed a postseason fate as the league's automatic qualifier and UT Martin's third individual participant in the program's Division I NCAA Regional history (since 1992-93).
"Going into each round of stroke play, my mindset was exactly the same – trust my process and preparation as well as take it one shot at a time," Xoinis said. "My goal to start the tournament was just to play my hardest for my teammates so we can have a shot at the match play round on Wednesday. I knew at the turn on Tuesday's last round of stroke play that we were definitely advancing so I shifted to trying to win the tournament but I still kept my strategy the same. That really paid off well in the end because I got up-and-down on both 17 and 18 to win the tournament."
It was a moment that Xoinis had literally envisioned well in advance. Going into the 2025 OVC Championships, he had already navigated Dalhousie Golf Club in nine competitive stroke-play rounds plus a pair of match-play rounds at two previous OVC Championships (2022 and 2023) as well as the Golfweek Collegiate Kickoff tournament in September 2023.
"Having played the course possibly the most out of anyone in the field was definitely an advantage," Xoinis said. "I knew the course demanded patience and I was ready to be patient. I also already knew what clubs I would be hitting off each tee beforehand so that made the preparation a bit more intentional. I would visualize tee shots on the driving range in the weeks leading up to the event."
Being crowned as an OVC champion with a chance to compete for a national championship at next week's NCAA Regional is a fitting end for Xoinis, who began playing golf at the age of 11 in his hometown of Chattanooga, Tenn.
"I slowly started playing golf more often through middle school and that's when I fell in love with it," Xoinis said. "It became a reality that I could play college golf my junior year of high school when I started seeing some good results in tournaments."
While various universities came calling during the recruiting process, Xoinis was drawn to the engineering program at UT Martin. Then-head coach Jerry Carpenter and his assistant Austin Swafford – now in his fifth season at the helm as Skyhawk head coach – knew they were getting a steal when Xoinis inked his National Letter of Intent in November 2019.
"On the golf side of things, I knew I would find success at UT Martin with our on-campus Rhodes Golf Center facility and the wide selection of courses that we play," Xoinis said. "I can say confidently that we have the best practice facilities out of any team in our conference. These last five years here have really shaped me into the person I am today. Coach Swafford has done a great job of building a culture that is centered around being a good person and a good teammate that will lead you to becoming a great player."
Xoinis took advantage of a redshirt year in 2020-21 and turned that into an OVC All-Newcomer campaign the following season. He played in all 13 tournaments and was an integral part of the program's 2022 OVC championship squad, finishing with the best score of any Skyhawk (221, +5) at the NCAA Regional in Norman, Okla.
After taking part in 11 events in 2022-23, Xoinis shaved nearly 2.5 strokes off his scoring average during his junior campaign in 2023-24. His 208 (-8) in the Grover Page Classic was tied for the best cumulative score by any UT Martin representative in the 20-year history of the tournament, leading to his second career OVC Golfer of the Week honor. He was also one of just three males to be named an OVC Scholar-Athlete, considered the highest individual award that any OVC student-athlete can receive.
Xoinis carried that momentum into a remarkable 2024-25 season. He dialed up a career-high 94 birdies and a pair of eagles – including a hole-in-one in Round 2 of the Grover Page Classic on Sept. 17. His OVC Championships medalist triumph resulted in a career-best 72.8 stroke average – ranking just outside the top-10 in the OVC this season and barely behind the 10 best scoring averages in the Skyhawks' NCAA Division I Era.
For his collegiate career, Xoinis boasts four top-five finishes, six top-10 performances and 13 top-20 efforts. He played 137 combined rounds of stroke or match play and delivered a countable score in 83.3 percent (95 of 114) of his appearances in the UT Martin starting lineup.
With that said, the biggest secret to Xoinis' success may be off the course as he had no shortage of backing at the 2025 OVC Championships or any other tournament throughout his collegiate career. Moments after the final hole of stroke play at the 2025 OVC Championships, Xoinis was swarmed by his fiancée, his family and his future in-laws as they all soaked in the momentous occasion.
"I have a very good support system and it was so special to have everybody there at this year's OVC Tournament," Xoinis said. "After I walked off the last hole I went and gave my fiancée a big hug – I always knew that if I won a tournament, that was the first thing I wanted to do. My Dad has come to nearly every event I have played in college – he is the reason that I got into golf so it was great to have him, my mother and brother as well as my fiancée's parents all in Cape Girardeau."
Xoinis learned of his NCAA Regional destination last week as he will be one of 75 golfers to tee it up at the Auburn University Club in Auburn, Ala. on May 12-14. Even though that will be a near-three-week layoff since Xoinis found himself on a golf course in an official capacity, he has been keeping himself sharp.
"I have split my time roughly in half between practice at our facility and getting on a course to play," Xoinis said. "I prefer to practice in a competitive way – that could mean playing an on-course match or just doing a wedge game at our facility with a teammate. I'm looking forward to playing a really nice course with the best college golfers in the country."
Players Mentioned
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