My Passions in Life

Things I love beyond my work.

Golf

In my sophomore year of high school, I decided that I wanted to join another sport to fill up my schedule. I wasn’t very athletically inclined and had no experience in any of the sports that my school offered in the spring, but I was determined to find something. On a whim, I decided to try out for the women’s golf team. Although the only golf experience I had was mini, my father 
had clubs I could use, and a vast knowledge of golf from when he used to go before my brother and I were adopted.
There were no cuts that first season since the program was small, but it was unfortunately cut short due to the pandemic shutting everything down after only a week of practice. I decided that I wasn’t going to let the pandemic stop me. I wanted to become a better golfer with more time on my hands than ever before. My father would take me to the municipal parks to practice hitting real golf balls, while at home I would go out every day and hit plastic practice balls in the backyard to get my practice in. When the next season came around, it was my junior year, and we were still a very small program. With eight girls, six were able to go to the varsity events so my coach kept the same five girls, and rotated the sixth one out to give everybody a chance to be in the lineup.
My coach had already seen a tremendous improvement from my practice the year before, and I was fortunate enough to be one of the players always in the lineup and deemed a co-captain of the team.
That summer, I decided I wanted to be able to learn more, and cold called a local private golf club, funnily enough where my parents got married, asking them if they had caddies and if I would be able to work there as one. They responded quickly, and that summer I was the only female caddy on staff. As a forecaddy, I would wake up at five in the morning to get to the golf club to help the golfers every weekend. Getting to watch more experienced golfers every week helped me improve my swing, and getting to use the range on Mondays was a great perk.
In the spring of my senior year, I returned to my school’s golf team, and there was an unbelievable turnout. Fortunately, my coach was still impressed with my golf skills, and how much I had improved over the summer from practicing, and learning from the golfers while caddying I was given a permanent spot in the lineup again. That season, I was also appointed co-captain with the other senior on the team who had joined the same year as me, and we led the women’s golf team that had mostly players with little outside experience.
The summer between my senior year in high school, and my freshman year of college, I worked as a golf valet at a local country club, and that was one of my favorite jobs. Being around more golf, and getting to see some amazing golfers inspired me to work harder, and become the best golfer I could become. Looking back, I think about how such a small decision that I made in my sophomore year changed my life forever.

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