Amy Olson: A life in golf in her own words

It all began as a way to pass the summers. Really, it was just another way to tag along with my brother.

Golf was secondary. It could have been anything else, but it wasn’t. I fell in love with the game after discovering competition. When my dad signed me up for my first tournament, he made me promise that I would give it my full effort. That month of July in 2001, I hit 150 bags of balls at Oxbow Country Club.

I’d heard about Annika Sorenstam hitting balls until her hands bled. I thought that was a cool story, so I hoped it would happen to me. It didn’t. Just some blisters and eventually calluses that never went away.

I won that first tournament, the Ironman Junior Classic in Detroit Lakes. Seeing hard work pay off was exhilarating. From that point on, golf became like the air I would breathe. It wasn’t so much that I needed it, but I didn’t think there was another way to live.

Some mornings I would wake up at 5:30am so I could beat the golf course staff to the course. As I would chip, the balls would leave traces in the dew that eventually the lawn mowers would erase. People would ask my dad how much he paid me to practice. He would just smile and shake his head.

I loved the fact that I didn’t need anyone else around to work on my game. There were no organized practices that I had to wait for. Just the golf course, me, and a little country music on my Walkman. The song “Mississippi Girl” was my favorite, but I had my own lyrics of “North Dakota Girl” I would sing to myself, dreaming of the day I would be playing on a big stage.

I met Dale Helm when I was 12 years old. My dad felt like Nathan and I had passed his own knowledge level of golf and we should have a real coach. We spent hours every week, driving up to Mayville, ND and practicing on that range. “Take a deep breath. Fully relax. Turn your back to the target. Pause. Let your arms fall. Let gravity do the work.” His words are still on repeat in my head.

If we are lucky, we have those coaches who are much more than a coach. They become family in the end. The lessons they teach us go far beyond the sport. “How you treat people isn’t based on who they are, its based on who you are.” I owe a lot of who I am to those sessions with Dale. Winning the U.S. Girls Junior Amateur catapulted me onto the national golf scene. That entire week my family overheard questions like “Who is this girl from North Dakota?” Since no one knew who I was, they didn’t know I was standing next to them.

I loved being associated with North Dakota. Attending NDSU solidified that as a way people would identify me. Some people view their roots as something that holds them back. An excuse of sorts. If anyone could do that, it would be a golfer who trades in her clubs for a shovel every winter. But my parents always encouraged me that if God had created a certain path, there was no obstacle too big. Just trust and obey.

College continued the trend of following in my brother’s footsteps. Nathan became a Bison, I became a Bison. He majored in accounting, I majored in accounting. I finally let him have some space when he decided to take extra finance classes and read every book his favorite professors recommended.

My teammates became my closest friends. My coach, Matt Johnson, was the perfect college coach for me. I didn’t know how lucky I was at the time, but a decade later, I think I’m beginning to understand. It isn’t everywhere that people care about you more as a person than as an athlete. Where they genuinely cheer for your success as if it was their own. The way Fargo embraced and supported me made such a difference as I began my professional career.

Thinking about turning pro is intimidating. The skill you have in a sport is one thing. The rest of it is another. There is no draft. No guaranteed contract based on previous performance. It helps to be a little naive. To not know how hard Q-school is. To not know how quickly finances can dry up if you don’t make it right away. To not know how much every putt is suddenly worth.

I was one of the lucky ones. Before I entered Q-school in the fall of 2013, Scheels, Bell Bank, and KLN Family Brands and some friends from Oxbow helped me finance this crazy dream. At the end of Q-school I was one of 20 players with a brand new LPGA tour card. That doesn’t always happen on the first try. I don’t know why it worked out for me. But I do remember my parents advice to just trust and obey. God is the one who makes the way.

A little known fact is that I got a double bogey on my first hole as a professional golfer. My brother who finally followed me somewhere, caddied that tournament and said, “It can only go up from here!” Ten years later I’ve acquired a million miles on Delta, seen the Great Wall of China, and crossed the International Date line too many times to count.

Oh, and I married my best friend somewhere in there too. With our first four dates in four different states, I’m constantly amazed that Grant Olson put up with my schedule…and still does. Life on tour has been full of ups and downs. I don’t have to tell you all of them, because you’ve been there watching. I could hear your claps, cheers, and sometimes tears.

Sorry about the tears. I’ve had four 2nd-place finishes, two of those in Majors, and thirteen top-10s. Apparently that’s how you are supposed to measure a career in golf. But statistics don’t seem to even capture a tiny spec of the story. If I see you, ask me how many times I’ve showed up to the airport and realized I booked my flight for the wrong day. Maybe I’ll tell you about the worst caddie experience I had. Or what my favorite cuisine of food is. Speaking of food, who else has gotten food poisoning on the road?

I’ve worn a sombrero in Mexico, a chitanga in Africa, and a qipao in China. I’ve met some of the most powerful people in the world, my heroes growing up, and probably a lot of little girls who are the future of the LPGA. But most importantly I’ve made incredible friends.

Somehow, at the end of any phase, it's always the people that mean the most. If I told you I won’t miss some things about this chapter, I’d be lying. But I also know there is more to life and I have different dreams. A lot of them. Probably too many for a lifetime. But I’m so thankful I got to live out this first one.

I’m thankful for all the people who supported me while I did. I’m going to start thanking them by spending more time with them going forward. I don’t know what is next for me. But I’m sure golf will always be part of my life in some way. No matter what is next, through this journey I’ve learned how to move forward. Just trust and obey. It is a very, very good God who makes the way.