Dynasty on the 6A links, Part 4

Westlake High School’s boys’ golf team is in the midst of a dynastic run. The Chaps have won 8 of the last 9 6A state championships and have now claimed 15 state titles in their history, more than any other sport at the successful school. After the Chaps’ 2026 championship, we sat down with longtime golf coach and current Westlake athletic director Callan Nokes, who delivered 9 state titles in his tenure, to unravel the secret to the Chaps’ success. The answer, you might expect, isn’t one small thing. In order to go fully behind the red-and-blue curtain, we’ll take a deep dive into the pillars of success one at a time with a multi-part series on Westlake’s unrivaled 6A success.

Part 1 (Thursday, July 9): Team Building, Strength Training, and a College Atmosphere

Part 2 (Monday, July 13): Practicing Competitive Golf, not ‘Golf Swing’

Part 3 (Tuesday, July 14): Creating Program Depth through Frequent Team Qualifying Chances

Part 4 (Wednesday, July 15): Embracing the Expectations and the Chaps who Delivered when it Mattered Most

Having seen former Westlake coach Callan Nokes’ program framework deliver success as a player and assistant, current head coach Michael Rome said he’s not looking to put his own dramatic touch on the program. There’s an awful lot of truth to the saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“Obviously, what Coach Nokes was doing was outstanding,” Rome says. “I’m not looking to reinvent the wheel. I’m just trying to add spokes to it.”

One of the things Rome added is a program that helps track all of his players’ key statistics. He and longtime program assistant Lane Grigg study the data and use it to tell players what they need to work on. The coaching duo also uses the data to help them shape the lineup for upcoming tournaments. Leaning into the analytics is the latest way Westlake looks to gain an edge – or a stroke – on the field.

“As soon as you get complacent, you get caught,” Rome said. “We preach being better every day. We can all do better whether we’ve just shot our best score or our worst score. Some days that’s 1% better and some days that’s 20% better, but we can be better.”

Perhaps more than most, Rome knows the Westlake standards. That’s why his first year at the helm in 2024 weighed on him. The Chaps qualified for the state tournament, but the quest for a 7^th straight state title fell short when the team finished 8^th, 20 strokes behind champion (and rival) Lake Travis.

“That first year was heartbreaking for me when we didn’t win,” Rome said. “It was a great year. We were the district and regional champs, but it felt like a let-down. ”

To his credit, though, he – and his players – bounced right back. Perhaps not winning the 2024 title reenergized the program for the seasons that have followed.

“It felt like we had a clean slate in 2025,” Rome said. “We lost in 2024 and in a way that was a weight lifted. People had been talking about the streak, and it reinvigorated our drive to be back on top.”

The 2025 team won a rain-shortened event by 11 strokes before winning again in 2026, this time by 6 strokes. And they learned – or reinforced – another lesson in the process.

“We can’t get complacent,” Rome said. “Just because we’ve had success doesn’t mean it always happens again. We must keep finding a way to get a little better.”

The expectations existed long before Rome took over in 2024, and even before players like Reid Davenport matriculated into the high school a decade earlier. Davenport, who went on to play at Vanderbilt and is now playing professionally, noticed them after moving to Austin from Houston and watching Westlake’s 2014 team, led by Matthew Perrine’s individual title, win the crown.

“I was in middle school then, and I just remember thinking these guys looked like professionals almost,” Davenport said. “It looked so cool. I remember thinking that if I got the chance to play golf there, it would mean so much to me. It was very cool.”

The names may change every year, but the goal never will. Westlake wants - and maybe needs - the state championship. Just as Nokes before him, Rome doesn’t shy away from the goal. He talks about it with the team from the year’s first meeting, and everything that happens from that point through the final putt is designed to win another one.

“It’s our goal, and it’s not easy,” Rome said. “I think we do a good job of keeping the focus on the day-to-day. We have things to take care of before we get to the state tournament. And when we do get there, we hope that what we’ve done has set us up for success.”

Most times, it has.

Each title team tells a story, but some stand out in Nokes’ mind. He starts with 2019, when the Chaps qualified 2 teams for the state title and then saw both finish on the podium, the only time one 6A school has done that. Thomas Bockholt (139, individual champ) and Jacob Sosa led the blue team to a 20-stroke thrashing of the field, but the red team, including Hayes Haydon and John Luke Powell, finished 3^rd overall.

“That speaks to the depth we had,” Sosa said. “And we all had our individual goals to achieve. When you have 5 guys (or more) that competitive, and we’re all trying to beat each other, we felt the rest of it was going to take care of itself.”

Sosa was a consistent mainstay on teams that won 3 titles (the 2020 season was erased by Covid). His teams won by 20 (2019), 18 (2021), and 23 (2022) strokes. Individually, his worst state tournament round was 1-over par 73, and 4 of his 6 rounds were 70 or better. He and his teammates never stressed about playing well in the state tournament. They simply trusted their preparation and played their golf.

“We kept our formula pretty basic,” he said. “Every event we did, every team practice, every challenge, was designed to focus on what you had to do to win. When we got to the (state) tournament, we were able to put our A game on and take what we thought was ours. We knew we were prepared, and it was time to go collect.”

Nokes’ early teams included, among others:

• Alex Ellis, a key to the 2009 and 2010 championship teams. He finished 2nd overall in 2009 (one stroke behind Dallas Jesuit’s Jordan Speith) and 5th in 2010 before embarking on a record-setting career at College of Charleston.

• Trent and Brenden Redfern, who along with Reid and Jackson Davenport were the only sets of brothers who played together on championship teams. Jackson Davenport holds family bragging rights with 3 state titles to Reid’s 2.

• Matthew Denton finished 2nd individually in 2018 and also played for 3 state championship teams.

• Reese Ramsey was a 4-time state tournament participant from 2014-17, winning titles his last 2 years before moving on to Texas A&M.

Adam Villanueva offers the perspective of playing for both Nokes and Rome. As a sophomore in 2023, he led the way for Nokes’ final championship team. He posted back-to-back rounds of 6-under par 66 to win the individual title to go along with the team title.

“I wasn’t really worried about pressure,” Villanueva, now playing at the University of Texas, recalled of his sophomore season. “I knew it was the state tournament, but I wasn’t aware of everything around me. I played very free. At that time, I felt really good about my swing, and when I feel that way, I play my best. I felt like there were no barriers.”

The Chaps wrapped up their 6^th straight title by 5 strokes, and Nokes passed the baton to Rome. As he took over, Rome kept all the pillars of previous success while adding a bit more personalized feedback, Villanueva said, pulling perhaps on his days as a Westlake golfer himself.

“The only difference I can really see between them is that Coach Rome’s mindset was more of a player than of a coach,” Villanueva said. “He works individually with each player on specific things based on the stats we keep.”

But a 7^th straight title didn’t follow.

“It was heartbreaking that the streak ended, but it awakened a new mindset for us,” Villanueva said, looking back on the team’s 8th-place finish in 2024. “We had to become more mature in the way we played. I believe I did it, and I could see it with my teammates.”

Westlake won the title by 11 strokes in 2025 and started a new streak with the 2026 championship. More, Villanueva feels, will follow.

“Everything is going great with the program,” he said. “We just have to keep in mind to trust Coach Rome. Sometimes he’ll say something that might not make sense, but trust him because he’s been in our shoes before. He was a state champion as a Westlake Chap himself. He knows what has worked and he’s adding to it. I think the future is bright.”