MELBOURNE, Fla. – All it took was 10 cents for Katherine Cook of the nationally ranked Florida State women’s golf team to fall in love with the game of golf.
Before the age of 10, Katherine would not have guessed she would have earned a golf scholarship to play at Florida State. Growing up, she played a lot of tennis with her older sister, Abbey. While she did love being outside and enjoyed the time she spent with her sister, it wasn’t until her grandmother put a golf club in her hand that she truly realized what it meant to love a sport.
Cook begins play in her first collegiate event on Sunday when the Seminoles tee-off in the Moon Invitational on the Classic Course at Suntree Country Club. Ranked No. 7 in the most recent Golfstat national poll, the Seminoles are the highest ranked of the 16 teams in the event.
Katherine’s grandmother found golf later in life and mainly played it recreationally.
“She was a big social butterfly; she loved to be around people.” Katherine said, “She understood the importance and the value that golf has, it’s a lifetime sport.”
Sharing these memories with her grandmother are what sparked her interest in the game. Her grandmother would not stop asking her about playing, but after a couple of incentives, it didn’t take much for her to continue it.
“She would make a bet, ‘Hey if you make this putt, I’ll pay you 10 cents’ and I was like well why not 25 or why not a dollar? She would say, ‘What are you pitching a fit about, you’re getting money.’ And this one time, I used to have the worst attitude about getting 10 cents, and she brought this huge bag to Walmart with me to one of those coin counters, and it must have totaled up to $80. It was just a zip lock bag, and she was like, ‘See what I mean, do you understand.’ So, she has taught me a lot of life lessons, through golf and being around her.”
Her grandmother always reminded her what this sport can do for someone.
She would say, “It brings you so many great people and teaches you so much about life,” said Katherine.
And that’s what her grandmother did. She taught her granddaughter the first steps in becoming a golfer.
“She probably wanted someone to play with too,” said Katherine.
This was easy to do, as her grandmother’s house at sat behind the 16th hole on Katherine’s home course — Glen Arven Country Club in Thomasville, Ga., which is still Cook’s favorite hole to this day.
“It’s this par…
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