Arkansas State adds Niagara golfer to roster
Lookout Point member Kayla Burke accepts four-year athletic scholarship
Snow isn’t entirely unknown in Jonesboro, Ark., a city of 70,000 in the eastern part of the state and home to Arkansas State University.
Indeed, snowfall in Jonesboro averages 12.2 centimetres annually.
That’s not a misprint, 12.2 cm. If you’re keeping score at home, about eight per cent of the 152 cm that falls on Lookout Point Country Club in Pelham during a typical year.
And Kayla Burke was keeping score.
A chance to golf year-round factored in the Welland Centennial Secondary School student’s decision to accept an athletic scholarship from Arkansas State.
But climate wasn’t the only thing tipping the scales in the Red Wolves favour. A comfortable, “homey” feeling during a campus visit impressed the 17-year-old daughter of Ken and Krista
Burke of Port Colborne.
“They were very, very welcoming,” Burke, a French immersion student, said. “You could tell they wanted me to become their next teammate.
“I really like the community as well. It’s a small town and that’s where I come from, a small town. “It’s very homey.”
Other scholarship offers were swept off the table after the family returned home from their visit to Jonesboro on the Labour Day weekend.
“You could tell immediately it was the best fit for her,” Krista Burke said, recalling her daughter’s reaction. “We didn’t want to waste any more time. It was a
‘Say yes to the dress’ moment.”
Adding to Burke’s comfort level about her future home away from home, and easing fears of being away from home for the first time, are the people she already knows on Arkansas State’s women’s golf team. Freshman Kiley Rodrigues and graduate assistant coach Rachel Pollock are from Kingston, Ont., and Guelph, respectively, and, like Burke, golf out of Canadian development coach Ann Carroll’s academy in Toronto.
More Canadian content on the Red Wolves women’s golf program: head coach Marie-Josee (M.J.) Desbiens Shaw is originally from Quebec City.
Burke goes to Mississauga every Sunday and every other Friday to work with Carroll. Currently, the focus of the training is on her short game.
“My long game has always been better than my short game, so you always want to practise your long game more,” she said.
However, improving her short game is what will prepare Burke most for her first competing in a Division I program.
Short game is definitely what is going to help in her first year at university.
In September, Burke’s short game came up big as she putted her way to her second Niagara Champion of Champions junior girls title and first since 2014. Her 2-under-par 70 at Rockway Vineyards was nine strokes lower than playing partner Payton Bennett of Twenty Valley, who finished second.
Desbiens Shaw said Arkansas State was most impressed with Burke’s “fast progression in the Canadian junior golf scene.”
“She has had some very good finishes and has shown a true dedication to the sport,” the Red Wolves women’s golf head coach said. “I always look for players who have a passion for the game and I truly believe Kayla has that.”
Desbiens Shaw isn’t worried about Burke needing time to catch up to counterparts from southern climes because golf isn’t played year-round in Ontario.
“Canadian players have a tremendous amount of resources presented to them so the transition is much easier,” she said. “Kayla works just as many hours during the year as our players at the collegiate level.”
Burke, who started at Whisky Run in Port Colborne but now plays out of Lookout Point in Fonthill, picked up the sport from her father and grandfather, Ken Burke. The competitive juices began flowing not long after.
“At first, it was just kind of for fun,” she said. “Then we started doing U.S. Kids tournaments, that’s when I started getting more competitive.”
It took her until she was “13 or 14” to like a sport that can be fraught with frustration and has been disdainfully dismissed as a “good walk wasted.”
“When you’re younger, you obviously want to please your parents, but I wanted to do well, it was just frustrating, so it was hard to ‘like’ the sport.”
Burke persevered and, in time, grew to love golf, especially how playing well made her feel.
“I felt that I could express myself through golf,” she said. “I started to like it, the better I played, the better I felt about it.”
By the time Burke was 15, she was beating her dad regularly.
“Now, she beats me handily, it’s humbling,” he said with a laugh.
Golf as a potential ticket to post-secondary education became a possibility for Burke about two years ago.
“This is when I started to have Ann as a coach and she knows a lot of universities, and I knew that she would help me get a good education and have this opportunity that I have today.”
Burke remembers playing a “very solid week” at the Ontario Junior Golf Championships when Pollock told Carroll that Arkansas was interested in adding Burke to the Red Wolves roster.
She is looking forward to taking her education — and her golf — to the next level.
“I think it’s good for me to experience life for myself and to become an adult, I think that’s really important,” she said. “But obviously I’m going to be missing my family.
“There’s always the Internet and Facetime.”
In her first year at Arkansas State, Burke intends to take gen-
eral studies.
She hopes to use that as a base for courses that will prepare her for a career in teaching or coaching.
Burke is the latest in a list of athletic scholarship recipients at Welland Centennial that includes Alexis Brenzil, track and field, Hawaii; Kambrie Luciani, track and field; South Florida; and Rachel Della Valle, rowing, Oklahoma.