Getting a Grip
The game of golf and I didn’t have a head over heels romance from the beginning like one may think. I was introduced to the game by my late grandfather, Stuart Gimbel, when he took my brother Jake and I out to the lesson tee at Briarwood Country Club when we were about eight years old.
Golf didn’t really stick out to me from the other sports we were playing. Whether it was AYSO Soccer, travel baseball, or feeder league basketball, Jake and I stayed busy on the fast paced sports a young kid would find interesting, unlike the slow, “boring” game of golf.
When we were about 12, my mom thought it would be fun to reignite our passion for the sport, or just get us out of the house, not sure which one. Jake and I, along with a friend, took lessons very casually from a pro at Deerpath GC in Lake Forest. For some reason the endless pursuit of trying to hit the perfect golf shot was a little more intriguing to me than running sprints on the basketball court.
I played in my first event when I was 14, winning an IJGA event by shooting two scores of 40 over two days of 9 holes. Around the same time, I made it a goal to make the high school team. My parents doing most of the research, brought me to Chris Oehlerking and The Golf Practice in Highland Park, and the rest has been history. With their help, I have seen incremental growth every year I have been there, taking Chris’ coaching and expertise as best I can to make the improvements I need to make.
My goals since that first tournament in 8th grade have progressed to say the least.
It first started as making the JV team, then the Varsity team, followed up by trying to play Division 1 golf. Currently, the next goal is to win a college event, and then hopefully turning professional and making my way through the ranks to become the best player in the world. All it takes is a dream. It’s grind time!
For more on my story leading up to committing to Miami University, Bill McLean wrote a great article a while back: https://jwcdaily.com/2019/08/23/driven-2/
