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In Her Words HOW GOLF CHANGED MY LIFE

Ours was certainly not a love at first sight. In my earliest years, I definitely preferred the company of basketball, or volleyball. Even the beginning of our courtship featured a great deal of complexity and challenge: I remember the early Sunday mornings during winter time, the runs to take the tram and then the bus, all to reach a course full of frozen ponds and golf balls that would bounce everywhere. Often I practiced and played in the rain and wind, wondering where the fun was…it in fact seemed more like a punishment. Equally challenging were the long days I spent with my grandfather studying all of your rules, a studious marathon that culminated in my first (and thankfully only) exam.

At 8 years of age, I couldn’t believe how many rules there were to learn. My grandfather nonetheless made me learn them…truly all of them. All those hours studying the rules with my grandfather have benefitted me, as I found in Geneva last summer studying environmental and political laws and rules related to the protection and trade of flora and fauna in different countries around the world.

In this exploration of what it means to play you, I began to understand what makes you special. And before I knew it, you began to conquer my heart little by little. Looking back now, I only want to thank you Golf. You gave me the opportunity to spend four extraordinary years at Duke, which became a family to me. In those years, I lived through some of the most diverse experiences anyone can ask for. I was a part of an extraordinary team of women who played you every day for hours without fail, a group with whom I shared successes and adversities.

In this time, I also learned to be silent - a skill Coach Brooks would never admit I have – in order to hear everyone’s different issues, and most of all the matters that were outside our world on campus. This is where I learned that you, Golf, have lessons that are meant for more than just yourself. When I was forced to take a break from you due to injuries, you reminded me that the course itself is placed in a bigger environment which involved many families and a larger community. Thinking in this manner led me to spend a year building the Birdies for Babies charity, which since my graduation has been taken on by my teammates back at school.

I also learned from you that our planet needs just as much care as all of us who live on it. My grandfather always insisted that I should have learned to play not only in the sun, but in the most adverse weather. He would remind me that after all, the game of golf was not born in a sunny and arid place, and therefore I should have learned to respect different environments and their specificities. He would also talk about the relationship between the environment and the golf course, often saying that golf courses should not be so green all the time given that rain does not fall constantly. I promise you, Golf, that I will try to work on your sustainability.

For the time being, I relish the incredible moments you have afforded me. Ending my four years at Duke with a team victory at Nationals was the most beautiful validation of collective effort that I could have ever imagined. More recently, having won the French International Ladies Amateur Championship, just a day before leaving for Cambridge, you gave me once again a gift to move forward in my life.

All in all, golf I hope I’ll always have you by my side.

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