Cardinal senior Virginia Travers completed her high school golf career last fall but she has a bright future on the links ahead of her.
Travers, a two-time district qualifier, on Wednesday signed a National Letter of Intent to continue her education and playing career at Ashland University.
“It is extremely cool,” Travers said. “I get to continue my education and play golf, both of which I love to do.”
A campus tour was all Travers needed to realize Ashland was where she wanted to spend her college days.
“I fell in love with the school,” she said. “Ashland has an incredible educational program. It has a great student to professor ratio and the size of the campus is perfect for me.”
Travers first reached out to Ashland and head coach Andrew Bolinger pulled out all the stops to reel in his newest recruit.
“Coach Bolinger has been extremely welcoming, bringing the whole team to meet me on my first visit,” Travers said. “The camaraderie among the team is second to none. What is amazing is the team is as dedicated to keeping their grades up as they are to golf. The team goal is to have a cumulative 3.5 (grade point average).”
In her time with the Huskies, Travers played on the boys’ team, which helped her to constantly focus on playing her best.
She developed an intense drive to compete and also focused on improving every aspect of her game.
“My consistency has been the biggest improvement,” she said. “A quote from a great movie that I applied to golf was, ‘Aim small, miss small.’ As for things I can help to get better, I’m learning to not get upset after having a bad shot because they happen and what matters is what I do on the next shot to fix it.”
Travers, who will major in biochemistry with plans to continue on to medical school and eventually become a surgeon, is looking forward to her future carving up the course at Ashland.
“I’m very grateful for getting to play with a great group of women and play on some really neat golf courses,” she said. “My hope and my goal is to get into the top five at some point in my college career…and every good surgeon needs to know how to play golf well.”
Travers credits her parents, Glenn and Jodi, for providing her with all the support she needed to get to this point.
“My parents have been my biggest supports and I thank my dad often for putting a golf club in my hand and telling me to swing away,” she said.
