With the year drawing to a close, and the spring playoffs still raging on, the least talked about sport around school has to be golf, which won’t begin until August. However, a few short days ago, a dream came true all because of this sport.

Junior Lauren Mead is a busy person around the school. Having participated in Student government for all three years of high school, as well as being the rising senior Vice President, she has a lot on her plate. Another big part of her life is golf. Having played golf for most of her life, she finally received the opportunity of a life. Mead had won a gold scholarship contest for $5,000 to the school of her choice. The contest involved the contestants making a video about themselves and why they deserved the golf scholarship. The video with the most likes on Youtube after a period of time won the contest. Sounds easy, right? It was not as easy as it seemed, as Mead was competing against two other golfers and the results could not have been closer.

“I was so stoked! It was neck and neck with one other guy and when I found out I won, it was amazing! I get 5,000 dollars to any college of choice, and I was just feeling so blessed… I have a network and community that supports its people and it showed in the votes. I’m so thankful for everybody who helped, in whatever way,” said Mead.

None of this would have been possible without the support of so many family and friends that amounted to a total of 948 votes. Mead’s hard work and dedication to golf led to her winning the contest and  scholarship.

“Lauren deserves this scholarship because she is super hard working and has a great attitude. She also volunteers at the First Tee to help younger kids learn to play golf” said golf team Captain, junior Bridget Hart.

Even being preoccupied with school and homework, her work with First Tee gives Mead the opportunity to teach young children how to play golf. This shows exactly what kind of person she is, despite being busy, she always makes time to educate the younger generation about her favorite sport.

After being dedicated to a sport since third grade, you would think  it would begin to get tiring. However, Mead is not slowing down and is already looking forward to next season.

“I will try to help better the golf team this year by just being open and supportive to my teammates. I’m not the greatest golfer to walk the Earth, but I think I’ll be good for team bonding this year. I think we’re getting a lot of new girls trying out so the team will have to get to know each other again,” said Mead.

Leadership is what holds the team together. With many people on a team, it is important to get along with one another

“Sometimes golf can be really quiet and serious but Lauren helps create an atmosphere of friendliness. She is good at welcoming new people to the team and making others smile” said Hart.

While being the heart and soul of the team, Mead has also continued to improve her golf game in the offseason in order to prepare for the upcoming season.

“When I actually hit my driver I can send the ball out there a pretty good way, and I like to think that if I hit a poor shot with my woods I can get some strokes back with my irons. My short game needs work though, but I’ve been practicing pitching and chipping a ton so my goal is to improve by next season and be able to lower my score with a better short game” said Mead.

Golf is a game of precision and dedication so continued practice with all of the different clubs will help Mead and the rest of the team to succeed this upcoming year.

With high expectations for senior year, Hart and Mead hope to lead the team farther into the playoffs than in years past.

“I think Lauren and I can take the team to regionals and an undefeated regular season. We don’t have a lot of returning girls this year so hopefully we get some new players” said Hart.

After so many years of dedicated hard work to improve her golf game, it only seems fair that Mead received this golf scholarship. With one more season of high school playing still to go, it’s time to lay it all on the line. After an impressive achievement like this, it’s not hard to see that she’ll succeed.