Ruben Sondjaja enters his third season as assistant coach for the Fighting Illini men’s golf program in 2025-26. He was hired on June 9, 2023.
Sondjaja (sawnd-JEYE-uh) came to Urbana-Champaign from Ames, Iowa, following a four-year stint at Iowa State, his alma mater, including his final two seasons as an assistant coach for the Cyclones’ men’s golf program.
A native of Sydney, Australia, Sondjaja first rejoined the Iowa State program as a graduate assistant for operations for both the men’s and women’s teams from 2019-21. In that role, he also traveled with the women’s program as an assistant during the 2020-21 season, helping the squad to its 11th-straight NCAA Regional berth.
Sondjaja then moved into a full-time role as the men’s golf assistant coach, where he was vital to the team’s training, player development, and recruiting during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.
During his time competing on the course for Iowa State from 2013-14 through 2016-17, Sondjaja was a two-time All-Big 12 Championship team honoree as a top-10 finisher at the conference championship tournament in both 2014 and 2015. He also helped lead the Cyclones to two NCAA Championship appearances in 2014 and 2017.
The three-time First-Team Academic All-Big 12 recipient ended his career with the third-best scoring average (72.75) in Cyclones history and his 12-career top-10 finishes ranked inside the top 10 in the ISU record books. Sondjaja won the 2016 Hawkeye Invitational and posted a top-10 individual finish at the 2017 NCAA Austin Regional.
As an amateur golfer, Sondjaja climbed into the top 100 on the World Amateur Golf Rankings and represented his native Australia in several international events including the Callaway World Junior Championships, Trans-Tasman Cup, and the Spirit International. Leading up to his senior year at Iowa State, he finished as runner-up at the 2016 Trans-Mississippi Amateur and following that season, he advanced to match play at the 2017 Western Amateur before going on to play two years on PGA Tour Canada and PGA Tour of Australasia.
Sondjaja took an active role in the Iowa State Athletics community, serving as a student-athlete representative on the Athletics Council and then as co-president of ISU’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).
He studied accounting throughout his time at Iowa State, completing his bachelor’s degree in 2017 and adding a master’s degree in 2021.
