Written by: Lexie VanAntwerp, Manager of Member Services
Many former little girls can say the same, but I discovered my passion for golf at a very young age thanks to my dad. My life and golf have been entangled ever since, and I imagine my two-year-old son, Bridger, will get a similar introduction soon — just from some combination of “Papa” and Mom.
Standing hip-high to my father, I took my first swings when I was just five years old and began playing three-hole tournaments soon after. At 15, I took my first job in the golf industry at BanBury Golf Course in Eagle, Idaho, working for the widely acclaimed teaching professional Jerry Breaux. As my first coach and mentor, Mr. Breaux opened my eyes to the idea that a life in golf was waiting for me.
My junior days were defined by a merging of passion and identity. I became as much a golfer as I was blond or a woman. And the relationships I’d built on the golf course quickly became the most valuable relationships in my life, ranging from family and friends to professional mentors. In a high school golf tournament during my freshman year at Capital High School, I met my best friend Gabrielle, a relationship that continues to enrich my life off the course as we begin our adventure with motherhood at the same time.
“But just seven weeks after he was born, Bridger brought me back to the golf course.”
As long as my putter behaved, golf was always a place that felt like home, which made the decision to play college golf seem easy and I arrived at Weber State University ready for the next chapter.
My college experience was full of all the things you hear about from college athletes — team comradery and school pride, friendships and new experiences. I wouldn’t trade the community I built in Ogden, Utah, for the world. But as rewarding as that journey was, it was also quite intense — full of travel, classes, practice, competition, injury, recovery, a social life and learning how to live on my own for the very first time. Golf, at times, started to feel like a lot less fun. It became a less reliable source of joy.
Coming from a small pond like Idaho, I struggled with the feeling that I’d become a much smaller fish. I was surrounded by perfect golf swings when I showed up on the range. I watched players shoot scores I’d only dreamed of posting. Within my own team, I found myself stuck as the sixth woman in a five-player lineup, traveling to play as an individual the vast majority of the time. Just as my competition asked for more out of my game, my game seemed harder to find. I felt inadequate, almost helpless. Then a hip injury that required surgery hampered my ability to play even more. Then my coach, “Smitty”, who recruited me to play for him passed suddenly from cancer. For the first time in my life, golf didn’t make me feel like I mattered.
My main reprieve over that time was during the summers when I would teach junior clinics in the time I wasn’t practicing out at Falcon Crest Golf Club in Boise. That familiar happiness I felt around the game when I was teaching encouraged me to turn professional, and I continued teaching juniors after college until I landed a dream gig as an assistant pro at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. If you’ve never been, it’s often described as “Disneyland for adults” and that’s what if feels like to work there, too. I had to pinch myself reporting to work every day and felt my love for the game return, focused on the natural beauty of the courses us golfers get to play. Golf had evolved, yet again, from a chore into a privilege.
But when you attach your love of the game — and at times your sense of self — to something that depends on the forecast, it’s never as fulfilling as it should be. At Bandon Dunes, you are, for all intents and purposes, stranded out on a cliff edge. For weeks at a time that feels like bliss. But I found myself missing my family and friends back home; all the loved ones who had let my roots in golf run deep.
Before I left Bandon in 2018, I married my husband, Jace, and the prospect of starting a family motivated me to leave even more. In doing so, I left the golf industry for something more stable, predictable and “normal.” But in even less time than it took me to return to the golf industry, I found myself pregnant with Bridger after signing up to work for the IGA.
The combination of two worlds for Lexie VanAntwerp: golf & parenthood.
When Bridger arrived, I found myself disconnected from the game in a whole new way. My work life was consumed by golf, but I didn’t have a strong sense of where it belonged in my personal life. Recovering from an unplanned C-Section left me feeling estranged from my body, let alone a solid golf swing. My identity as a golfer felt uncertain in ways it never had.
But just seven weeks after he was born, Bridger brought me back to the golf course. With my baby boy in one stroller and my clubs on another, we ventured out to Pierce Park Greens in Boise for our first walk as a mother and son. We’ve enjoyed many more since, and two years later my game is better than it’s ever been, giving me an essential physical, mental and emotional outlet that helps me be the best mother I can be.
Of course, Bridger won’t remember that moment in the Spring of 2022, but it’s the day I re-discovered what this game means to me and the people I share my life with. Through college and my professional life, I realized how easy it is to let this game make you feel small — to make you feel like you don’t matter. But every time I look at Bridger, I know that can’t possibly be true.