Molly Aronsson occasionally daydreamed on the golf course about being “between the pipes” as a goaltender in Olympic ice hockey competition. She has also thought about her youth potential as a soccer player or guard in basketball, residue from weekly pickup games with Epson Tour golfers.
The 26-year-old Vermont native has used her degree in Philosophy from the University of Washington to “step out of my own shoes” and figure that a golf career wasn’t a be all-end all. Especially after more than three years of moderate success on the Epson Tour.
“I definitely had some doubt,” Aronsson said this week. “There are some really good players on the Epson Tour, and it gets so much stronger each year. There were many times when I thought about quitting and was wondering if I would ever be good enough.
“There were many rounds in the last couple of years, when things weren’t going well, when I thought I could have made the Olympic hockey team. I was really comfortable in net. I miss that every day. But I’m glad I ended up choosing golf. I have learned a lot about life.”
Aronsson’s persistence was rewarded, out of the blue, in late June at the Island Resort Classic in Harris, Mich. She had hope after an extensive offseason conditioning program where she lost 25 pounds following a long recovery from a knee injury. But the results weren’t there early this season – with seven missed cuts and a best finish of a tie for 22nd. Still, she found her iron game the week before in South Bend, Ind., after a visit from her coach and benefitted from a sharp short game due to poor iron play early in the season.
Down the stretch at Sweetgrass Golf Club, Aronsson battled former Huskies teammate Sadena Parks in windy conditions. Parks bogeyed the final two holes, and Aronsson had her first career professional victory. The win catapulted her from 117th on the money list to 13th, in close proximity to the top 10 and a LPGA card for 2015. The renewed confidence will be shown next week when she attempts to Monday qualify for the LPGA’s Marathon Classic in Sylvania, Ohio.
“The win was a little bit of a surprise,” Aronsson said. “I have learned a lot. When I won, I was very relaxed. I sort of let go. It feels good to have hard work pay off and to get on the upswing.”
Aronsson has been in tune to a career in athletics since she was a youngster in Vermont playing hockey with the boys. When she wasn’t allowed to travel with the boys as a teenager on high-level travel teams, golf became more of a focus. She attended high school in Florida and picked the University of Washington because of the Pacific 12 Conference’s excellent golf teams and it was a new, faraway venture.
As she worked her way through college and into the professional ranks, her claim to fame may have been making holes in one on consecutive days – twice. She has made six in her career. Or that she has the odd ability to write backwards – a trick her older sister taught her when they were growing up. Her first tattoo, obtained earlier this year in Asheville, N.C., honors that skill.
But her biggest lesson may be the most profound.
“Golf is a lot simpler than I made it,” she said. “I look at my yardage books from the past, and I was overthinking and overanalyzing. The week I won, I played only one practice round, played pickup basketball and went to the casino. A lot of us in golf make the game too complicated.”
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