How Golf Became Part of My Life

Golf has been part of my life for so long that I don’t really remember making a decision to start playing it.

I came to the United States with my parents when I was four years old. My older sister was already serious about golf, and she eventually went on to become a professional golfer on the LPGA Tour. Growing up around her meant that golf was everywhere. There were golf clubs in the house, tournaments on the calendar, conversations about practice and competition, and a lot of time spent at golf courses.

So naturally, when I was around six, I started playing too.

But my relationship with golf has always been a little different from my sister’s.

For her, golf became a career. For me, it has always been one part of a much bigger life.

I loved science. I loved reading. If I became curious about something, I could spend hours looking it up, reading about it, and going down completely unrelated rabbit holes. Sometimes those things interested me much more than spending another afternoon on the range.

Like many kids growing up in an Asian family, I also understood pretty early that there were things my family thought I should be good at. In our family, golf was one of them. They pushed me because they believed it could give me opportunities, teach me discipline, and help me succeed.

As I got older, though, I had to figure out why I wanted to keep playing.

And my answers weren’t really about rankings.

Some of my closest friendships came through golf. Golf taught me how to spend four or five hours with people I might otherwise never have met. It taught me how to compete with someone while still respecting them. It taught me that the way you behave after a bad shot—or after someone else hits a great one—can say more about you than the number you write on the scorecard.

I began to appreciate sportsmanship, etiquette, leadership, and the small acts of kindness that are easy to overlook in a competitive environment.

Of course I want to improve. I want to shoot lower scores. I want to play well for my school and see how far I can take my game.

But I’ve realized that I don’t want my score or ranking to be the only way I measure whether golf has been worthwhile.

That is part of the reason I wanted to start this journal.

There are a lot of young golfers trying to balance school, tournaments, expectations from their families, friendships, and their own interests. Some are trying to play college golf. Some dream of becoming professionals. Others love golf but aren’t sure exactly where it fits into their future.

I think all of those experiences are worth talking about.

I’m still figuring out my own path. I definitely don’t have all the answers. But I want this to be a place where I can write honestly about what I’m learning—from golf, from school, from mistakes, and from the people around me.

And hopefully, I can connect with other student-athletes who are figuring it out too.

— Edward