Gap year at Vision 54 helped Vancouver golfer win NCAA invitation
I felt like I missed out on the growing and learning part of golf, I was so focused just on scores in my Grade 12 year.” Leah John
For most of her life, Leah John played golf just for the fun of it.
That was a nice bonus for her parents.
“What other parent gets four hours of uninterrupted time with their teenager?” her mom, Lynn, would joke.
John started playing at age five. It was her dad Jason’s idea; she took to it right away. An only child, it would prove to be a perfect pastime for the family of three.
As she got older, Leah said she realized how much she just loved the challenge of the game.
“Every shot is different, every shot is a challenge. Mentally it’s engaging,” she said last month.
A year ago, in her Grade 12 year at Vancouver’s York House School, it dawned on her that maybe, just maybe, golf could actually take her somewhere. She started playing in junior tournaments, chasing low scores.
“I was really committed to get a scholarship,” she said. She decided to take a gap year after graduating and just focus on her game. She moved to Arizona and signed on at the Vision 54 Academy.
“My goal for this gap year was ... since I started competing a bit later, I felt like I missed out on the growing and learning part of golf, I was so focused just on scores in my Grade 12 year,” she said. “I wanted to fail and go through the process of learning from it.”It’s not often you hear a young athlete admit that.
Her game improved and she started visiting NCAA programs.
The people she met at the University of Nevada impressed her so much that last fall she committed to the program; she’ll start at the Reno, Nev., school in the fall.
“I went for my visit and I absolutely fell in love with the school, the thing that was most important to me was that I jibed with the coach and the trainer,” she explained. “And that it was a good academic school was important too.” She plans to study kinesiology.
At Vision 54, she also learned about the Cactus Tour, an Arizona-based tour that targets young women who have just turned pro, as well as high-level amateurs. She played in four tournaments this spring and placed well in two of them. The process was what mattered, she said.
“Before I’d get a score I didn’t want but I’d just say, ‘Oh, I’ll get it next time,’ ” she said. “I was outcome-focused, not on the process.”
Playing on the tour has been a great experience, very much in line with her goals to focus on learning lessons: “It’s been a great learning adjustment, yardages are longer than junior golf and pin placements are harder.”
And now, she’s got dreams beyond just having golf take her to school.
“I was still on the fence on whether to become a professional, but after playing in Arizona … that’s really clicked in,” she said.