Startup Stories: Golf IQ

Join us!

Join the Conductor team as we take Startup Stories on the road! We will be taking you to Golf IQ in Conway, Arkansas, to show you how it all started and talk with Ryke Dismuke. There will be time at the end for Q&A with Ryke.

This will be a Facebook Live event on our Facebook Page, @ARConductor

When I left coaching for GOLF IQ

In 2019, after 19 years of coaching college golf, I left collegiate coaching to dedicate my focus and energy on running GOLF IQ; a company that helps college golf coaches and players use statistical analytics to improve performance.

The coaching career that lead me to GOLF IQ

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON

During the 2016-17 season, I helped lead the Cougars to NCAA Regional for the sixth consecutive season with five top-five team finishes, including second-place showings at the Bayou City Intercollegiate, Royal Oaks Intercollegiate, Border Olympics and American Athletic Conference Championships. In 2015-16, I was a part of a Houston team that won five regular-season tournaments with four student-athletes winning five individual championships. We competed in NCAA Regional play for the fifth consecutive season and battled at the NCAA Championships for the third straight year. Joining the Cougars in 2014, I helped lead Houston to the NCAA Lubbock Regional, where the Cougars won a 1-hole team playoff against Michigan to advance to the NCAA Championships for the second straight season.

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS

I spent 14 seasons at Central Arkansas, eleven of those years as head golf coach. I joined UCA and assisted in the creation of the Men’s program in 2000 and helped start the Women’s program just two years later. For my efforts with both projects, I was recognized as the 2003 AFLAC National Assistant Coach of the Year. Later that year, I became head coach of both Men and Women’s programs and began a streak of success. Competing in NCAA Division II until 2007, I enjoyed a combined 18 All-Gulf South Conference Players, four Gulf South Conference individual champions, two Freshmen of the Year, three All-Americans and eight Academic All-Gulf South Conference selections. In 2004 and 2005, both Men’s and Women’s programs competed at the NCAA South Regional with one individual advancing to play at the NCAA Championships each season. My Women’s teams won Gulf South Conference crowns in 2003 and 2005 and ranked as high as No. 2 nationally by GolfStat after winning seven of 10 tournaments. On the men’s side, my 2005-06 squad won five of 10 events and moved as high as No. 2 nationally in the GolfStat poll. When Central Arkansas moved to the Southland Conference and NCAA Division I competition in 2007, success continued to follow. My Men’s and Women’s teams won a combined 22 tournaments, including five straight titles for the Men’s team in 2010-11 and the Women’s victory at the 2010 Kiawah Island Intercollegiate over 42 other teams, the largest field in NCAA Division I history. My golfers went on to receive five Southland Conference Players of the Year awards, 23 All-SLC Team honors, 18 SLC Players of the Month and six Academic All-SLC accolades. Five student-athletes competed in NCAA Regional play with one competing in the prestigious Palmer Cup. In addition to coaching, I am also a published writer. In 2003, I wrote an article on increasing club head speed through strength training for Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, the only article of this type published in a refereed journal at that time.

PLAYING CAREER

As an undergraduate, I played for the University of Arkansas from 1998 to 2000, competing with the Razorbacks’ No. 1 ranked team in the fall of 1997. I received my bachelor’s degree from Arkansas in Psychology in 2000 and earned my master’s degree in Kinesiology from Central Arkansas in 2003.

PERSONAL

I have a wonderful wife, Michelle, two kids; son, Daxton Ryke, and daughter, Addyson Fayth.