As is so often the case with these things, it was a moment of magical serendipity that set Anne Walker on her way from Strathaven to Stanford.
It was the summer of 1997 and Walker, one of Scotland’s top amateur golfers, was finalising plans to study at the University of Edinburgh later that year. A chance encounter with Belle Robertson – by common consent, the greatest female amateur the country has ever produced – gave her pause to reconsider.
Robertson had recently been contacted by Barbara Bentley, a member of the San Francisco Golf Club. The pair had kept in touch since meeting at the 1974 Curtis Cup, staged at Bentley’s home club and where Robertson had captained the Great Britain & Ireland team.
According to Bentley, the University of California in Berkeley was starting to make some headway with its golf program and was interested in recruiting its first international player. During a junior event in the summer of ’97, Robertson gathered a group of girls together and asked if any of them would be interested. Walker raised her hand straight away.
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After impressing the university’s coach Nancy McDaniel during a trial round, Walker was offered a place. In January 1998, she flew to the States and has never looked back,
A quarter of a century later, Walker is one of the most successful and sought-after golf coaches in the United States, a reputation she underscored earlier this year when her Stanford University girls’ team won the NCAA Championship for the second time.
“It’s really hard to believe,” she tells bunkered. “When you’re in the moment, you never really stop to take It all in. You’re more taking care of the process, which sounds cheesy, I know, but that’s really what it is. You’re just getting on with the job. It’s only…
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