PITTSBURGH — It’s been quite a month of golf for 2000 Butler graduate Dan Rodgers.

The Slippery Rock University graduate — and former captain of The Rock golf team — is the head men’s and women’s golf coach at Carnegie Mellon University. He finished 43rd out of 312 golfers at the PGA Professional Championship (April 29 through May 3) in New Mexico.

“I was tied for third after the first round and missed qualifying for the PGA Championship by four strokes,” Rodgers said. “That was an interesting week.”

The month became even more interesting.

A week ago, Rodgers was in Florida with the CMU women’s golf team at the Division III National Championships. The Tartans placed fourth, earning one of the big trophies to bring back to campus.

His CMU men’s team topped that, winning the Division III national championship on Friday, competing the four-day, 72-hole tournament with a team score of 1,151, six strokes better than runner-up Piedmont.

There were 43 teams in the tournament field, played at Keene Trace in Nicholasville, Ky. The national championship was the first in any sport in Carnegie Mellon history.

“We are so proud of that,” Rodgers said. “Playing a four-round tournament is so rare in college. Almost all of our events are 54 holes, 36 one day, 18 the next. This was four rounds over four days.

“The way we competed on that final day ... the way we played the par-5’s all week, going 31-under par on those holes ... it was pretty awesome.”

The Tartans were among the top three teams entering the final three holes of the third round.

“We struggled on No.’s 16, 17 and 18 on that course the previous two rounds we played,” Rodgers said. “The first round was played on two different courses. We went into the final round at 8-over and stood in fifth or sixth place.”

Five golfers — David Zhang, Brian Xu, Justin Chan, Henry Scavone and Andrew Wang — comprised CMU’s team. The top four scores of the five golfers on each team were scored.

The Tartans began the final round with a bang, scoring an eagle on the first hole. They closed out by having a golfer eagle the No. 18 hole as well.

“We played so well that entire final round,” Riders said “I knew we had a good shot at winning it going into the 18th. That’s a tough par-4, going around water, and when we got that eagle, I figured we had it.

“Three teams play together, so we weren’t even in the first group on that last day. I liked being in that position, though, because a lot of times the first three teams are almost playing match play against each other, figuring nobody else is going to catch them.

“They had no idea what we were doing,” Rodgers added.

A head golf coach at CMU since 2016, Rodgers has had his teams in the national championship hunt before. His women’s team finished second in 2021. His men’s team was sixth last year and placed fourth in 2021.

“We’ve been chasing this title for a while now,” he said.

Coaching two collegiate golf teams and still playing professionally himself, while having a wife and three kids at home, is quite a juggling act.

His children are involved in soccer, basketball, baseball, dek hockey and are beginning to take up golf.

“I haven’t been home much the past three weeks and that’s tough on my family,” Rodgers said. “(His wife) Jen has been keeping everything together and I have full support from my family. I’m extremely grateful for that.

“Watching my team win is more satisfying to me than my own success in golf. I consider my CMU teams an extension of my family. I always enjoy watching my kids succeed more than myself. Our golf teams have a higher cumulative grade point average than the other students at CMU and I’m proud of that.

“We have a few 4.0 students playing golf for us. Their academic achievements are amazing.”

While coaching prevents Rodgers from practicing golf as much as he would like, he does have a net and mat in his backyard and hits golf balls there on his own time.

“Some of the skills I’ve helped my golfers pick up wind up helping me as well,” he said.

“I plan to play the Tri-State Section tournaments this year. We’ll see how it goes.”