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Let's Do This All Again!

Welcome back!

 

In the spirit of the Competitive Off-Season, the blog took a break as well. Nonetheless, a new year has begun bringing along new opportunities, fresh spirits, and more blogging! I’ll start by briefly summarizing my off-season adventures, recap the past 3 months in Phoenix, and end with a preview of what is happening next.

 

Off-season lasted from last October through January of this year. During that time, I moved back home to Georgia with my family. I was very fortunate to be welcomed out at St. Ives CC where I enjoyed great practice and fun rounds with members. I also had the pleasure of working with a company called Backswing Golf Events (www.backswinggolfevents.com) to help me earn funds for next year’s tournaments. Additionally, many other favorite moments took place away from the golf course. First activity on the list was attending the wedding for one of my dearest college friends. In short, it was a beautiful God-filled celebration that I was blessed to witness. Cheers to the Santi’s! Next, in the absence of tournaments, Alex offered a proposition based on our time spent together. After careful consideration, I agreed to his terms, so he now holds the title of “caddy” and “boyfriend”. In November, I took a trip down to Jacksonville, Florida with Alex to spend a week working with one of my swing coaches. During the trip, I enjoyed my first Georgia-Florida game with my dear friend Mikayla and her boyfriend. Go Dawgs! I also spent great time with much of my extended family that lives in the area. After Florida, I traveled with Alex back to Texas to attend a wedding as his plus one. A bonus from that trip was seeing my old roommate/best friend, Lexy, at her new home in Austin. And, naturally, we went line dancing! Come December, wedding season was back again. This time for Carolina, who was my college roommate and one of my closest friends in life. At the start of the month, I helped host a mountain weekend for her bachelorette party up in Lake Toxaway. A family whom I grew close with during my time there was gracious to let us borrow their beautiful lake-front home for the 3 days. It was such a sweet time making friendship bracelets, swapping stories by the fire, hiking, and loving on the bride-to-be! I celebrated Christmas Day at home, and everyone’s big treat was tickets to Six-Flags the next day.  Last big activity for the year was getting Carolina married. She had a beautiful ceremony in her hometown of Madison, Georgia. I’m not sure how else to say it, but there truly is something beautiful watching your friend marry the man whom God prepared for her. Such a sweet ending to 2023!

 

By January 4, it was back to living life on the west coast. This year, it was Alex who got in the car to help me move across the country (for which my mother was VERY grateful lol). For housing, I was blessed to live with super close family friends that I had grown up with back in Georgia. One of the daughters and her husband had just bought a house near downtown Phoenix, and they offered me the spare bedroom. All in all, I was quickly settled and ready to bring the off-season to a close. Originally, I had 6 events lined up with the Cactus Tour during my 3-month stay in Arizona. Unfortunately, there were some complications with the tour, and the schedule dwindled to only offering 3 events with the first one being in mid-February, and the last two in mid-March. On the bright side, this did allow for me to do a ton of additional and productive off-season work with my Arizona coach. I got my average swing speed up by 4mph, and I made some much-needed technical adjustments/progress with my full swing. The overall highlight moments from my time in Arizona are as follows: I was back to competing professionally and learning to grow as a competitive golfer. I quickly found an amazing church with a women’s Bible study to attend (Thank you, New Valley Church, for being so welcoming!). Both my parents flew out to Arizona the week of my first event without me having the SLIGHTEST idea. I thought I was going to a friend’s house to ride to church with her, only to discover my parents sitting inside the house. Mom caddied and dad walked along to watch. Next, I had a few days to fly down and visit Alex in Austin, Tx., and, every Saturday, you could be sure to find Lexy and me line dancing our little hearts out at the Buffalo Chip.

 

As I bring this blog entry to a close, I hope I have given everyone a joyful update on my past 6 months. Currently, I am in the car with my mom, life packed in boxes, and she is helping me move to Dallas, Texas, which is where I will base out of during my main season playing on the Annika All Pro Tour. One of my host families from last year is graciously opening their home to me for five months. The biggest benefit of this situation is cutting down commute times to tournaments. Coming from Atlanta, the shortest drive I had last year was 12 hours. Basing out of Dallas, the longest drive will be around 10 hours, with most being only 7-8hrs. My season opener starts the first week of April, and I cannot be more excited. Excited to see my friends, excited to test my hard work, excited to grow, excited to learn, and excited to be doing what I love. Also, I’ve decided to take a different approach to the blogs and recaps this year. Instead of focusing on the results and the numbers, I will be focusing on the experiences and the lessons. I will still share links and ways in which anyone can find results if they are interested. However, I have found that mentally, I can get very caught up in results and numbers instead of allowing myself space and time to grow. Yes, the numbers have their place and their importance. Nonetheless, I believe that at the professional level, we all have the ability to shoot the numbers. It’s taking the time to reflect on the emotions, the drive to keep pushing, and finding ways to keep growing that mean the most. It's reminding myself that it’s not my timeline, it’s God’s timeline. I’m sure there will be posts of joy and others of deep vulnerability. It’s golf, the tough days will happen. Regardless, I want to share each step of the way. I want to share how God uses golf to help me grow as a follower of His. And I want to share how it is always God who gives me the strength to keep going.

 

As always, I want to thank everyone for their continued love and support! There is no way I would be traveling across the country chasing a dream if it weren’t for the people around me and God’s constant provisions. I pray that I can continue to use this talent that He blessed me with as an outlet for me to share His love with others. If you made it this far in the read, you’re amazing. I hope you have a fantastic remainder of your day, and I can’t wait to bring everyone along for another great year on tour!

 



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