Stepping Up to the Tee

Looking back at my golf career means looking back at different stages of myself. A mirror of my growth, with each tournament division signifying a pivotal place and time in my life. 

As I grew in the game, I grew in myself. I fully savored the satisfying highs of my career, the purpose it gave me, and the pride it offered my family. 

I reminisce painfully, imagining the “what ifs” and a future where I didn’t let the lows consume me and end my career. It’s painful to realize that the only limitation was me. 

In reclaiming my relationship with golf, I claim the iterations of myself throughout my career and embrace how the sport was actually designed to make me limitless.

These are the precious minutes prior to my new introduction to the tee box.

When I was 7, my dad’s wish came true. 

I began to accompany him to afternoons at La Mirada Golf Course, observing the thrill he felt with a pure seven iron, which more often than not was quickly humbled by a slice into the flimsy net meant to protect those on the 10th tee freeway. Such inconsistency I childishly and naively snickered at my dad for was a state of being that I would begin to know intimately from my first lesson to the last stroke of my career. 

Connecting with my dad through the game he loves so dearly reinvented the meaning of the sport for our family, becoming a binder of our unit and tying me to a community of individuals with grit and resolve. The game taught me that the true champion of my life is my father, who imparted the passion he had for the game and exhausted all resources to build me into a formidable player, teaching me that I am capable of the greatness he envisioned within me. Throughout the rounds we shared, he gave me every opportunity to outdrive him and celebrate my wins. I became the only golfer he was thrilled to lose to. 

My golf career was the fulfillment of dad’s dream.

I shortly came to the realization that golf is a family business. 

Most afternoons from 2013 to 2022 were reserved for course practices with my mom. 

Dropped off at the front of the entryway, I would rush to the café where Maria knew my signature order, then walk a few steps over to the pro-shop to greet attendees who would only charge $5 for 18, or on the rare occasion, point to the first tee for a cost-free round. In her exhausted yet giving nature, my mom would rush down the sloping walkway in her navy blue scrubs, grab the cart keys, and meet me at the tee box.

More than teaching me about the unpredictability of course play and necessity for adaptability, each practice was time to recount the day and make ‘chismis’ (gossip) over the club cafe’s fries with extra cajun seasoning. The course was a perfect environment for one-on-one time, where my mom and I found vulnerable confidants in each other.

Competitions were as much family trips as tournaments. Wearing apparel proudly purchased by my grandmother at Roger Dunn, alongside my heart on my sleeve, competition grounds were filled with a Lapradez at every corner, from mom struggling to fit the Clicgear chair in my cart, Dad looking for unnecessary trinkets in the pro-shop, and my Mita doing crossword puzzles in the cafeteria for hours. Win or lose, I could expect a freshly cooked dish from a local restaurant to greet me. A gesture reassuring me that, in their eyes, I am their daughter before I am a player. 

The arrival of my decision to leave golf years later was all the more painful as golf infused itself into every inch of my life. I feared my parents’ resentment for cutting the strings to a meaningful connection. 

Our memories as a family remain time-stamped by the golf courses we explored for hours.  

Sisterhood: The Unifying and Divisive Nature of Competition

Entering a room and identifying myself as a golfer formed my sense of self at an early age, connecting me with diversely driven girls who understood the constant familial hopes and daunting expectations I assumed were a singular experience.

Social spaces were easier to penetrate with exclusive access into this unified sisterhood — one where you had to prove yourself before truly gaining entry. Luckily, not only did I have the prowess to earn my place in the most coveted golf groups, but a witty and humorous personality that reserved golfers resorted to for a laugh during tension-filled holes. The feeling of acceptance and recognition within these circles made me feel whole. 

 In the initial rounds of my now-expired career, silence of fear was my superpower, and the ability to “just hit” disrupted the stillness with a beautifully struck ball. Competitive golfers with a quiet mind and unshakeable demeanor are the most empowered. I never fully inhabited the “killer mentality” that those who soared developed into and embodied so well, almost transforming them into a separate identity. How I portrayed myself on the golf course was the exact same person I was outside of it: an expressive, emotional, and reaction-prone individual. This very trait brought me closer to my “rivals” as trusted companions and life-long girlfriends, but admittedly served as a disadvantage competitor-to-competitor.

Leaving the Course.

A rude awakening (to be frank, an existing thought temporarily subsided) overshadowed the championships that I had won as an independent and with my teammates. The tests of strength in mentality that come with devotion to golf heightened when I inched closer and closer to THE pivotal moment in a golfer’s journey: college recruitment. A choice to wholly dive in or step out. 

With the accumulation of competition years came disruption. Winds suddenly spoke in a harsh tone, commanding the ball to disobey my orders. The uneven rough jeered at me and began to know my name, becoming a home for  my “partner” to sink further into. Piercing the bermuda grass on the first tee meant trying to tame my shaky and sweaty hand, tightening my grip in fear of my club flying instead of the unruly ball. A desire for more beyond the sport coupled with undesirable results of falling behind the “pack” manifested anxiety into a dependable companion, one who distanced me from the passion that motivated me to be present an hour before each tee time. Burnout ultimately triumphed, as it had done with many golfers before me. 

While the girls on the tournament range admirably sacrificed the weekend gathering or vacation, I sought to define myself out of the bounds of golf and the inescapable anxiety that became attached to competing. I swiftly realized that my “sisters,” who qualified for the next stages of their careers in Toyota Tour Cup and AJGA, all had to sacrifice components of life more important to me than the game. Golf was their whole world, and it certainly was not mine. 

Following the final high school CIF season, I chose the revolving door. 

“What If” I Stayed.

In recognizing my wholehearted decision to take a step back, unrequited feelings of potential untapped remind me that I have unfinished business with my beloved “friend,” who gifted me wisdom, maturity, indescribable fulfillment, and purpose. Occasional sighs exposing the unspoken feelings of my dad in the months following my “retirement” incessantly itched me, which would be assumed to be rooted in my people-pleasing tendencies but truly stemmed from recognizing the truth in his unsaid words. 

I resort to leisurely golf in my post-competition world as a taste of what was before and have reclaimed joy simply from coaching my mom, showing off at TopGolf outings, and playing weekly rounds with cousins to be followed by a mandatory lunch. The greatness I experienced before was repurposed into a beautiful outlet for familial connection and a level of commitment I can most definitely handle. 

Better yet, “casual” golfing is an obvious yet surprising boost to the ego, satisfying the urges of an individual accustomed to competition while inviting curiosity and questions of what could have been. Being placed in a random group of fellow aficionados, oftentimes a sweet and elderly Korean man, means hearing endless praise and asking when he will find me on the LPGA. Such words, reaffirming the continued existence of my talent, create images of a world in which I might have pursued college golf. I catch myself questioning why I quit in the first place. 

Grip softened and mind as ease, golf once again has become peaceful for the mind. The swing has never left me and only needs my hands to reach out to the club.

5 Minutes to Tee Time.

I have come to realize that keeping a relationship with my sport is non-negotiable, a responsibility I place upon myself to repay for all that golf has molded and raised me to be. 

The course of direction has aligned once more to land on an uneven cart path, leading me to the overgrown high grass, where I must plant my feet and find proper footing. 

I am stepping up to the tee once more.