Feb. 15, 2005

What does a 13-year-old girl who aspires to play competitive golf do if her school doesn’t have a golf team?

If you’re South Carolina’s Laura McCaslin, you start your own team.

During her eighth grade year at Avery Trace Middle School in Cookeville, Tenn., McCaslin and three of her friends started the school’s very first girls’ golf team.

“There wasn’t a girls’ team at my school,” McCaslin said. “So me and three friends went to the boys’ coach and asked for his help in starting a team.” McCaslin has been playing competitively ever since.

McCaslin decided to start a golf team after growing frustrated with basketball. “I played basketball for the majority of my life,” said McCaslin. “My parents wanted me to try a different sport.”

In what started out as simply an attempt to try something new, McCaslin found a talent that she never knew she had.

By her sophomore year at Cookeville High School, McCaslin was playing number one on the varsity golf team. During her high school career, McCaslin was first-team all-state in both 1999 and 2000 and was selected to play in the Ruth Eller Cup, which pits the best amateur players from Tennessee against those from Canada. McCaslin’s high school career was highlighted by a two-foot putt on a playoff hole that captured the Tennessee state championship for Cookeville High School.

With her high school career behind her, McCaslin is now one of only three upperclassmen playing for South Carolina this season and finds herself in a leadership role once again.

“We have a really young team, it’s good because they bring a fresh outlook on things.” McCaslin said, referring to a Carolina roster that includes six freshmen and one sophomore.

This young Gamecock team will look to McCaslin for the type of leadership that she showed throughout middle school and high school.

“I love our team. I feel as though I need to step up and provide more leadership than I have been in the past because we are so young,” McCaslin said.