Having a golf course in your backyard can be the ultimate motivator to learn to play golf.
But Jake Crosson had equal access to soccer fields and basketball courts growing up in Thailand, so there was always a sport to play.
Colleen Wilhelm said there was something about golf, though, that was special for her son. She said Jake’s love for the sport started in the first or second grade when the family moved overseas. The family lived in Thailand from 2006-2013.
“I think he likes the challenge,” Wilhelm said. “I think he likes the mental challenge of it. He likes the challenge of figuring out where to put the ball. I don’t want to call it perfection, but he really strives to get it on the first shot.
“I don’t know. My mom has always said he is very focused and driven.”
Now a junior at New Hope High School, Crosson is coming off a summer he hopes helps him realize his goal to play golf in college.
Last month, Crosson wrapped up a successful season by finishing first in the Coca-Cola Junior Tour Championship at the Starkville Country Club. Crosson shot rounds of 77 and 74 to beat Brandon Walker by seven strokes to win the title in the 16- to 18-year-old age division.
“I have done that the past three years. It comes down to the last tournament, and I had not won any of the normal tournaments, so I was thinking I had to pull something together and get a win,” Crosson said.
Crosson earned three second-place finishes, tied for third at the Pros of Tomorrow event, and had a fifth-place showing on the summer tour, which features many of the top prep golfers from area schools. Crosson also finished fourth in the Mississippi Junior Golf Association State Games in Flowood, was part of the winning team and was the top individual finisher at the MJGA Cup Match in Greenville, and tied for 37th (out of 79) at the MJGA Future Tour event in Greenville.
Wilhelm doesn’t think having a golf course so close to the backyard of the family’s home in Thailand was a primary motivator for her son to take up golf. She acknowledged he is a perfectionist even though his room might get a little too messy sometimes. She said she recalls a time when Jake was 3 years old and he asked her to take the training wheels off his bicycle. When she told him he had to wait until he was 6 to get them taken off, she said he told her, ‘Alec (his older brother who is six years older) doesn’t have them on. I want them off.’
“If Alec was doing outside stuff — basketball, skateboarding, cycling without training wheels — Jake was doing it at a much younger age. … He was keeping up with Alec and his friends,” Wilhelm said. “The competition (on the golf course) really pushes him to go out there and win. He knows when he is playing against boys two years older, but he still pushes himself to go out there and beat those boys.”
Wilhelm said Jake honed his craft by taking the allowance she gave him each week to pay for two rounds of golf or a round of golf and so many buckets of balls. She said he usually picked a round of golf and so many buckets of balls.
“He would spend hours at the range,” Wilhelm said. “After dinner every night he would go, ‘Mom, I am going to go chip and putt.’ ”
Wilhelm said chipping and putting was free as long as players brought their own balls. She said she would go with him and watch him chip and putt for 30-60 minutes. These days, Wilhelm said she no longer plays the game and serves as her son’s cheerleader and sounding board.
Crosson said he always has been a competitive person, so he enjoyed learning how to golf in Thailand. He said he played with older friends and in men’s leagues on the weekend. He said the early exposure helped him develop a love for a game that can go from being frustrating and exhilarating in a matter of seconds.
“From kindergarten to fourth grade, it is kind of hard to hold a golf club in the first place and hit good golf shots,” Crosson said. “In fourth and fifth grade, I could start seeing I was playing better and I actually started thinking I could pick it up and try to play college golf.”
Crosson has been a member of New Hope High’s boys golf team since the eighth grade, when he moved to Columbus. He said he started golfing in kindergarten. He attributes the success he had in the summer to a maturing mental approach that allows him to put bad shots behind him and re-focus for the next one. He said his goal each time he plays is to get off to a fast start. More often than not, he accomplished that goal this summer.
“I kinda knew going into the second day (I had a good chance to win),” Crosson said of his effort at the Coca-Cola Tour Championship. “You don’t want it to run through your mind, but sometimes you think we have a few more holes left and I am up by this much. You just have to keep it together.”
Crosson said he was more focused on the second day, which helped him shave three strokes off his first-round score. He admitted he didn’t think he did too well in the points race in his age division (third to Walker and Eli Hemphill), but he hopes to continue to play in the fall to keep his game sharp for the spring, when high school teams get back on the course. He hopes the confidence he gained this summer, which included a round of 31 at the MJGA Pros of Tomorrow event, will help him attract attention and put him on track to earning a chance to play golf in college.
“I think the dream is coming a little more true than it was earlier,” Crosson said. “I just have to keep playing good and keep playing consistently.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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