Union College Athletics

An accomplished amateur golfer with ties to the Capital Region, Sam Schuffenecker begins her first season as head coach of the Union College women's golf team in 2025-26.
 
Schuffenecker has been very active in the local golf scene in recent years and won the inaugural Capital Region Amateur Championship in 2024, the same year in which she also qualified for the USGA Women's Mid-Amateur Championship for the third time in a span of four years. She captured the NYSGA Women's Mid-Amateur title in 2023 and finished runner-up at the event in 2026, and twice has been named the Capital Region Women's Golfer of the Year.
 
Schuffenecker played four years of collegiate ice hockey at Connecticut College from 2009-13, appearing in 94 games and serving as co-captain as a senior for the Division III Camels. She moved to the golf course as a graduate student at the University at Albany in 2013-14, pacing the squad in two of its 10 events and leading the Great Danes with a seventh-place individual showing at the year-end MAAC Championships. 
 
A native of Oswego, Schuffenecker earned a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Connecticut College in 2013 and a master's in public health from UAlbany in 2014.