Rinko Mitsunaga - Women's Golf Coach - Kansas State University Athletics

Photo by: © Will Huster/K-State Sports

Rinko Mitsunaga

Title:
Assistant Coach

Rinko Mitsunaga, a highly successful former collegiate and amateur player who has transitioned into coaching, is in her third season as an assistant coach for the K-State women’s golf program in 2025-26.

Mitsunaga (pronounced MIT-su-NAH-gah), who worked the previous two seasons at Tulane under current K-State head coach Stew Burke, has helped the Wildcats to a highly successful two-year run to begin her tenure in Manhattan.

With Mitsunaga on staff, the Wildcats’ 2024-25 season was perhaps the most successful campaign in program history as the Wildcats advanced to their first ever NCAA Championship after tying for second in the NCAA Lexington Regional. The Wildcats set a school record with a 288.13 team scoring average, over two shots per round better than the record set by the 2023-24 squad. K-State also posted two wins and nine top-five finishes to tie for first in school history, while its seven top-three finishes were also a school record.

K-State produced eight of the top 20 54-hole scores in school history during the 2024-25 campaign in addition to 13 of the top 25 team rounds. Individually, the Wildcats posted 13 of the top 18 rounds and 10 of the top 25 54-hole scores during the season.

Mitsunaga was instrumental in the development of Carla Bernat, who left K-State as the best player in program history. Bernat, the 2024-25 Big 12 Women’s Golfer of the Year, earned First Team All-America honors from the Women’s Golf Coaches Association (WGCA) and Golfweek in addition to being a finalist for the ANNIKA Award. Bernat set school records for career (70.44) and single-season (70.08) scoring average and tied the single-season record for wins (3).

In addition to the wins as a Wildcat, Mitsunaga was on the bag for Bernat’s victory in the 2025 Augusta National Women’s Amateur (ANWA), the first player in event history to shoot in the 60s for all three rounds.

During her first season in Manhattan, Mitsunaga helped K-State set a school record for lowest team scoring average (290.25) – a mark that only stood for one year – in addition to tying for seventh in top-five finishes (4), rank in the top 25 in school history for lowest 54-hole score six times and for lowest team round seven times.

One of the Wildcats’ top-five finishes in 2023-24 was a victory at the White Sands Invitational, their first team championship since 2019 and the first away from Colbert Hills since 2017. Mitsunaga also aided K-State in setting the school record for lowest 54-hole score with an 840 at the Westbrook Invitational and tied the program record for lowest round with a 277 during that same event.

A native of Roswell, Georgia, Mitsunaga helped guide the continued development of Bernat, who transferred from Tulane to K-State for the 2023-24 season. She helped Bernat set the then-individual scoring average record at 70.90 – nearly two strokes per round better than the previous mark – while guiding her to a pair of individual titles, a berth to the NCAA Regional and an appearance in the NCAA Championship, becoming just the second player in school history to compete in the national championship.

With Mitsunaga’s help, Bernat became the first player in program history to be named an All-American as she was a second-team honoree by the WGCA and a third-team pick by Golfweek. Additionally, Mitsunaga helped guide Super Senior Haley Vargas to a 73.50 scoring average during the 2023-24 campaign to rank third in school history, while Vargas’ career average of 75.32 ranked fourth at the time of her departure.

During her time at Tulane, Mitsunaga helped the Green Wave win the 2022 American Athletic Conference Championship and berth into the 2022 NCAA Stillwater Regional as she coached three players who earned All-AAC honors. In 2022-23, Mitsunaga helped guide Bernat to AAC Women’s Golfer of the Year accolades in addition to First Team All-AAC and Second Team All-America accolades.

Prior to her time at Tulane, Mitsunaga served as the Player Services Coordinator for the LPGA Symetra Tour. In that position, she processed tournament fields, entries and player registrations in addition to collecting caddie forms, member commitments and withdrawals. She also created player memos each tournament week.

Mitsunaga shined as a student-athlete at Georgia, helping the Bulldogs earn 11 team victories while also claiming an individual title in the 2016 Georgia Lady Bulldog Individual Championship. During her collegiate career, Mitsunaga put together seven top-10 finishes and 23 top-20 placings from 2015 to 2019. She earned 2015 All-SEC Freshman honors and 2016 Honorable Mention All-America accolades from Golfweek.

As an amateur golfer, Mitsunaga played in the U.S. Women’s Open in both 2012 and 2016, while she won the 2019 Georgia Women’s Amateur Championship, 2015 USGA U.S. Women’s Four-Ball Championship and the 2015 Georgia Women’s Match Play Championship.