Deaflympics win boosts Symetra competitor.
GLENDALE — Kaylin Yost couldn’t hear the two words last week. She could hardly hear anything. Well, until the roar. In Samsun, Turkey, at the first-ever golf event in the 23rd Deaflympics — an International Olympic Committeesanctioned event at which deaf athletes compete at an elite level — Yost wasn’t permitted to use the hearing aids she’s worn since doctors noticed her hearing impairment at age 2. She could hear loud noises but nothing more, so when the fan yelled the two words — “miss it” — as she stood over gold medalgranting putt, Yost went about her business.
She brought the putter back and sent the ball toward the hole.
It dropped into the cup, and the roar followed.
“Winning gold is so cool,” Yost said Thursday, “but the biggest thing is how much I fought.”
Yost, who was born with dislocated hips, has fought for years. Starting Friday at Brown Deer Park Golf Course, she’ll fight alongside 155 other competitors, including six from Wisconsin, in the Symetra Tour’s PHC Classic.
“I’m excited,” she said. “I’m still kind of jet-lagged and sick, but I’m just going to take every shot one at a time and have fun.”
In 2015, Yost’s first year on the Symetra Tour after a fouryear career at Campbell University, she wasn’t having fun playing golf. She gave up the game and went to work for JetSmarter, a service selling private jet flights like Uber sells car rides.
Yost worked as a coordinator for the company from the 16th floor of a building in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Often, she’d look through the windows and out at the sun, thinking about what it’d be like to be on a golf course. She also became jealous of those posting pictures at golf courses on Instagram.
She loved her job and the people she met, but she knew she had to get back out on the course.
“I had some reaction from family and friends. They said, look, this is the real world,” Yost said. “But I just knew that was not what I wanted.”
Yost returned to golf in 2016. That summer, she competed in the Southeast Deaf Golf Tournament, one affiliated with the United States Deaf Golf Association. There, Yost met Susan Zupnik, the vice president of the association.
Last February, Zupnik sent a text to Yost laying out the details of the Deaflympics in Turkey. Yost had never heard of the games, but they intrigued her, although there were concerns.
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Yost said, “but it was pretty expensive.”
Thanks to a GoFundMe effort, Yost was able to raise more than $6,000 for the trip.
The golf event featured six competitors and began with two stroke-play rounds for seeding. Two match-play rounds followed, and Yost’s success led her to the final round against India’s Diksha Dagar.
As Yost walked to the seventh hole 3-down on July 26, she pulled out her yardage book and read a bible verse within: “But the lord stood with me and gave me strength.”
Yost won the next three holes and battled the following nine. At its conclusion the two were tied, which meant a playoff hole.
In it, Yost’s caddie and fellow United States deaflympian, Michael Finnean, spoke to her through sign language and lipreading. He told her to be aggressive on the tee box, so she drew back her driver and smashed one down the fairway.
Two shots later, she had an 8footer for the match.
Yost tapped the ball. The fan yelled. The putt went in. She fist-pumped.
“It gives me good momentum coming into this event — coming into any event,” Yost said, “just to realize that I do have it in me and I can close.”
When she arrived back in Miami last Friday, Yost immediately went to an urgent care. She was diagnosed with a sinus infection, two ear infections and a wicked cough.
Yet that won’t stop Yost this weekend in Wisconsin.
“I’m a fighter,” she said. “Despite what life brings you, it could always be worse.”