Do you want to master the toughest game ever invented? Do you want to become one of Minnesota’s most promising golfers?
Here are the golf tips that you need to follow:
1. Build a time machine.
2. Go back to the age of six and record the game as you study from your father, a teacher.
3. Practice and play seven or eight hours a day.
4. Approach the game with optimism and enthusiasm, which for most of us disappears after our first Titleist sinks to the bottom of a pond.
Isabella McCauley, the Star Tribune All-Metro Girls’ Athlete of the Year for the senior year, is a high school graduate. She qualified for the last US Open.
Last weekend she became the first woman and the youngest to ever win the Minnesota Golf Champions tournament to beat a field of men and women, with the men playing a longer version of the course.
McCauley, 17, who lives in Inver Grove Heights and plays at the Southview Country Club, will play for the Gophers next year and looks set to be on the LPGA tour. She wore a maroon gophers cap during the tournament last weekend.
“I would like to go pro,” she said. “That’s the goal. But I always take it step by step and I never really look far ahead. I’m determined to play for the Gophers and I’m really excited about it.”
Golf isn’t the only type of lesson she receives in-house. She says she was always homeschooled.
Your typical day?
“During the school year I get up and work about five hours in school, an average of seven to twelve,” she said. “Then I’ll go play golf until it gets dark. In winter I practice for about three hours in my basement or in a dome. Then I come back home and do more schoolwork and sometimes I work out.
“I exercise two or three times a week, usually at night. During the school year, I would say that I train between three and six hours a day. In the summer we play five days a week and want to be outside for seven hours, including a round of golf, one day a week we train about five hours, then we take a day off. ”
She takes early college courses at the University of Northwestern-St. Paul. “I’ve been home schooled all my life, so I’m used to it right now,” she said. “I really enjoy it because I can keep my time and schedule. And when I have a golf trip, I can advance or take my work with me. I’m kind of Type-A so this works for me. You just need to be able to learn while dealing with distractions. ”
She started playing when she was six. Her father Sean wanted her to “learn a game that we can enjoy for the rest of our lives”.
McCauley entered a tournament when I was 10, she said, “And that’s when I really started looking at it. When I entered a tournament, I was definitely more interested.” met her in 7th grade and took part in the Drive, Chip & Putt championship at Augusta National in 2017.
Her father’s lessons and work ethic made her the # 1 high school girl player in the state in the competition for Simley last year. Her win last weekend is an indication that she is making a habit of winning.
“I played in the State Open in August,” she told Feet. I put a lot of pressure on myself.
“So my goal for this last weekend was not to put too much pressure on myself and just focus on one number. It definitely means a lot to win this tournament.”