Jensen Castle always wants to win but also understands friendships she has made playing golf are even more important. (UK Athletics Photo)
Kentucky senior Jensen Castle made the cut at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, a prestigious tournament limited to the best amateurs, for the second straight year despite playing with a painful rib injury just like she did when she won the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship. She wound up 26th in the 72-player international field.
Castle is an intense competitor but also enjoys herself on the golf course and understood why she was asked at the tourney why the women seem to “have so much more fun than men” during tournaments.
“Maybe girls realize this isn’t life or death. Maybe the ego isn’t as involved, respectfully. But I think girls — it’s just fun. We go out there and it’s like we realize that this is not our identity,” Castle said.
“I know the friendships that I have established through golf are so much more important than the game itself. Like it’s great that we can play the game together, but like Amari Avery lives in freaking California. I’ve been there once. That, let alone of all the other places that I have friends, is just crazy. I think just cherish the little time with them, too.”
Castle said not to confuse fun-loving with not being competitive.
“Don’t get me wrong, like I’m competitive. I don’t want to lose. But it’s a good distraction,” she said. “Like you go out there and you bury yourself into winning all the time. Like big picture, that’s not going to get you real far. Instead of going out there and maybe you do win and you have the best six hours of your life with this girl in California. That’s just an example in my opinion.
“I still want to play well and obviously walk away with a trophy, but big picture it’s like, okay, there’s bigger things. This girl (I am playing with) could be in my wedding. Know what I mean?”
Castle and her teammates will next compete at the Southeastern Conference Championship at Greystone Golf & Country Club in Hoover, Ala., starting April 12.
