Patience has become the strong common denominator for the performance of seniors Margarita Garrido and Shayne Lim this golf season.
Garrido and Lim have taken time to reflect on present obstacles and how the past seasons have taught them how to approach their golf game effectively.
Focusing on the present and remaining calm is a mindset that Garrido has infused into her pregame thought process after she has seen what it can do for her performance.
The Folds of Honor Challenge on Sep 15-17 brought a series of challenges with it, when Garrido struggled putting and driving balls on the course. She started off her second day with a triple bogey. This setback led her back to the driving range with Steve Toon, head coach of Taylor’s golf team. She returned to shoot an improved 77 in her final round.
“Last year our team really struggled with the coaching situation,” Garrido said. “I think this year we can see the difference between the good and bad advice that we used to have in the past years.”
Both Toon and Mike Miner, assistant head coach, have helped improve the women’s golf team’s overall confidence, Garrido said. This has resulted in a positive mental perspective change for them.
When she returned back home to Mexico this last summer, Garrido was met with a flurry of new lessons from her coach of seven years, Jorge Gomez. These helped her mentally and physically get into shape. She spent significantly more time practicing on courses and played two tournaments.
Garrido remembered the first time she played golf at five years old, which subsequently led to her meeting Gomez, who had selected her with a small number of female golfers to train.
“I have always been really competitive since I was young,” she said. “He really helped me to get prepared for college golf and show that competitiveness every day getting prepared for every tournament.”
As graduation looms ahead in the spring, Garrido said that she would like to continue playing at tournaments and working with Gomez in an effort to get into ladies' professional golf.
When reflecting on her previous season, Lim felt that it wasn’t her best one and decided to work on some of her skills during this time, particularly on ball striking. She chose to practice at several different golf courses over the summer to strengthen her course management.
“On the course, you're just challenged with many different kinds of shots, and it really tests your ability of what you've already trained to do,” Lim said.
Lim said this years’ worth of responsibilities has made her freshmen year look easy, with increasingly larger homework projects in addition to her training schedule. She has learned how to adapt to changing schedules and tight deadlines by working ahead of time.
Over the summer, Lim, a communication major, spent her time working with the Singapore Association for Golf, by being on staff at golf events and producing social media content.
Familial relationships have stretched across the ocean as her mom supports her from Singapore and her dad flies over from Arizona to watch some of her tournaments.
The highs and lows in her relationship with golf have been present, so patience is necessary, Lim said. She added that it is vital for her to remain patient and true to what she has been training for.
“It can get frustrating at times—but I think it's very intriguing how I'm still very much into it,” Lim said. “It keeps you coming back, even though it's really challenging.”
