Brooks gets back on track
Sorrento native revives her game, Gators
GAINESVILLE — Outside it is a Chamber of Commerce day in Gainesville, where a cloudless, brilliant sky illuminates the undulating terrain and stately live oaks at Mark Bostick Golf Course.
Inside the Florida Gators golf complex, Sierra Brooks’ smile lights up the room. The look is born from a sense of belonging, contentment and achievement the one-time phenom from the Orlando area had not felt in some time.
This time a year ago, Brooks endured her darkest winter while a freshman at Wake Forest University. Recovering from wrist surgery, questioning her future and pining for home on yet another cold, overcast day in Winston-Salem, N.C., Brooks felt lost and alone.
Most of all, she missed the game she began to play as an 8-year-old.
“I was heartbroken, mainly,” Brooks recalled. “The hardest thing is being away from competition, not being able to do what you love and having to take a backseat watching all my other teammates compete … just missing that whole aspect of life. “It was hard.” Many more difficult days would lie ahead.
But once she left Wake Forest and returned to her parents’ home in Sorrento, the clouds slowly began to lift. Then one day, UF coach Emily Bastel Glaser called to let Brooks know a spot was available for her if she was interested.
Brooks delayed her plans to turn professional. After a six-month stretch spent building her body, rebuilding her game and even starting a blog to share her experiences, Brooks arrived last month at UF like a bolt of lightning.
“She’s really brought new energy to our team,” Glaser said.
The Gators, in turn, have re-energized Brooks and her golf. She entered the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge — a three-day tournament in California that began Sunday — as UF’s No. 1 player.
Following a 15-month layoff from competition, the 19-year-old sophomore showed no signs of rust to capture the season-opening Florida Challenge Jan. 29 at Black Diamond’s Quarry Course in Lecanto.
On the final hole of the one-day, 36-hole competition, Brooks flushed a 4-hybrid from 205 yards to set up a 10- to 12-foot putt for eagle on the finishing par-5 18th. Her putt lipped out but set up an easy birdie for a one-shot win and an impressive 6-under 138-total finish.
“It was an amazing feeling,” Brooks said. “It’s been a really long time since I had a win.”
More than two years, in fact, back in 2015 when Brooks was on a roll. That year, she won several tournaments, including the prestigious SALLY Am, finished runner-up in the U.S. Women’s Amateur and sat sixth in the rankings among female amateur golfers.
The battle-tested Brooks’ superb ball-striking and competitive fire were on display on the final hole two weeks ago. But Glaser, a professional during most of her 20s, was struck even more a day earlier by Brooks’ approach to the team’s practice round.
Playing Black Diamond for the first time, Brooks asked questions, took notes and plotted strategy for the next day’s rounds.
“For someone her age, I think those are qualities of someone who has played at a high level,” Glaser said. “Her golf IQ is very high. You can tell she’s seasoned, knows how to play.
“Just because you can hit the shots doesn’t mean you know how to play.”
Brooks’ focus and meticulous nature apply to her responsibilities off the course, too, and have made her a leader on a talented Gators’ squad in need of an alpha golfer since Maria Torres moved on to the LPGA.
“I’ve seen her work ethic and the way she carries herself in just the first few weeks here,” Glaser said. “That can be contagious.”
Brooks’ impact is no surprise to Glaser, who offered her a scholarship as an eighth-grader at Lake Mary Prep.
Brooks, then 13, jumped at the chance but eventually had second thoughts. She decided to go to Wake Forest — a smaller college with a more intimate setting.
But a wrist injury in September 2016 during her first tournament sidetracked Brooks, eventually required surgery and jeopardized her career. That year away seems like a distant memory now.
“I feel like I’m home,” she said.
Surveying the sunlit golf course outside, Brooks could not imagine herself anywhere else.
“I’m a Florida girl,” she said. “Nothing beats this, really.”