McCloskey Feeling A Bit 'Old' At U.S. Girls' Junior
Houston resident might be only 17, but she already has spent a college season at Pepperdine

By David Shefter, USGA

Bedminster, N.J. – Most of the competitors at the 61st U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at Trump National Golf Club are trying to impress college coaches this week with the hope of earning a scholarship.

Then there’s Lisa McCloskey.

The Houston, Texas, resident already has spent a year in college. That’s not a misprint. Through an interesting set of circumstances, McCloskey, who turns 18 on Aug. 7, finds herself competing against 155 other players who have yet to officially set foot on a college campus.

“It’s kind of awkward,” said McCloskey, a sophomore-to-be at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. “But I am so happy to be here.”

Because her parents moved to the United Arab Emirates, Lisa McCloskey, 17, of Houston graduated high school a year early and enrolled at Pepperdine last fall. (USGA Museum)

Just how and why McCloskey is at Trump National this week is a story unto itself. Last February, McCloskey was enjoying her junior year of high school in the Houston suburb of The Woodlands, Texas. Then her parents dropped the news: they were moving to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Her father is in the oil business and he was getting a job transfer. But McCloskey didn’t want to have to finish high school halfway around the world.

So she decided to graduate a year early, which meant loading up on extra classes and giving up competitive golf for three months. McCloskey said she took a combination of 11 classes between her regular high school and online. And she also had to tell college golf coaches of her intentions, eventually settling on Pepperdine, which had its own accelerated student on its roster.

Two years earlier, Taylore Karle of Scottsdale, Ariz., graduated a year early in order to enroll at the same time with her older brother, Austyn. So naturally, one of McCloskey’s first calls was to Karle.

“Going in, I prepared her the best I could,” said Karle by phone from last week’s North and South Women’s Amateur in Pinehurst, N.C. “She asked me what classes she should take freshman year. She did pretty well. She’s pretty quiet, but once you get to know her, she’ll open a little bit.”

Added McCloskey: “I think I worked harder in those three to four months than I have had at Pepperdine. I think I had a bigger workload, but the classes are harder [in college].”

On the golf course, McCloskey performed quite well, setting an NCAA 54-hole scoring record previously held by ex-Pepperdine star Katherine Hull with a bogey-free, 17-under 199 total at a tournament last fall in Las Vegas. At the NCAA Division I Women’s Championship, she tied for 10th and helped the Waves finish ninth as a team. Her only bad stretch came after undergoing an appendectomy Jan. 1 in Abu Dhabi, which sidelined her for three weeks. When she returned for the first spring tournament in Palos Verdes, Calif., she posted un-McCloskey-like scores of 90-82-89.

“Lisa is an exceptional talent with the drive to be the best,” said Pepperdine coach Laurie Gibbs in an e-mail. “The transition from graduating high school a year early to being a college freshman was a challenging 18 months for Lisa. I’m confident that she will elevate her game this year as a sophomore and benefit from the small-school environment.”

Karle characterized McCloskey as a “gamer,” or someone who just loves to play over beating hundreds of balls on the practice range. In other words, McCloskey would just assume show up 15 minutes before her starting time, stretch, hit a couple of balls and go to the first tee.

“Lisa is like, ‘Just give me my tee time and I’ll shoot my 69 and get back in the [team] van,’ ” said Karle. “She’s always the one who says, Coach [Gibbs], we don’t have to go to the course until 15 minutes before our tee time right?’ We’re all like, ‘No we need to warm up.’ She just wants to play and that’s it.”

In McCloskey’s first tournament since summer school concluded, she advanced to the semifinals of the North and South Women’s Amateur, falling to Cydney Clanton. She and her parents then made the long drive from Pinehurst to New Jersey for the Girls’ Junior, where last July, McCloskey posted a second-round 63 at Hartford Golf Club to earn medalist honors. She lost to Kristina Wong, 2 and 1, in the quarterfinals, but still earned an exemption into this year’s championship.

While the American Junior Golf Association forbids anyone who has played in college to participate in its events, the U.S. Girls’ Junior, conducted by the USGA, is only age-specific. As long as a golfer has not turned 18 by the last day of the event, she is eligible. McCloskey is not the first to play the junior after a year of college. In fact, Californian Dana Lofland won the 1985 title following a year at San Jose State, where she now serves as the assistant women's golf coach. The stroke-play medalist, Lofland beat future U.S. Women's Amateur (1991) and U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links (1992) champion Amy Fruhwirth in the championship match.

“If they let me play, I’ll be here,” said McCloskey, adding that she won’t be doing any extra recruiting for Pepperdine. “Seeing all the college coaches [is weird]. Even the ‘09s (class of 2009) aren’t even here anymore.”

A few players in the field will be enrolling in college this fall, but a good majority are a year or more away from graduating high school. Some are even in middle school.

“It’s going to seem like a little playground for you now,” Karle told McCloskey at last week’s North and South on playing the Girls’ Junior.

McCloskey certainly enters as one of the favorites, especially on her past performances in USGA events. She made match play two years ago at the Women’s Amateur at 15 and was a Girls’ Junior quarterfinalist in 2008. And she had a nice run at the North and South, which like the Girls’ Junior is a match-play event.

“I wish I could have gone one more [round],” said McCloskey. “I’m a little tired right now. We drove [on Saturday] and got here last night. So it was 36-36-drive.”

The Girls’ Junior will be one of her final events of the summer. After next week’s Canadian Women’s Amateur in New Brunswick, McCloskey will spend most of August vacationing with her family in the U.S. before they fly back to the UAE and she heads to Pepperdine for classes that begin Aug. 31. It’s a reason why McCloskey chose not to file an entry for the U.S. Women’s Amateur, which will be contested Aug. 3-9 at Old Warson Country Club in St. Louis.

Then again, the Girls’ Junior finalists earn exemptions into the field, so a good week here in New Jersey could alter the itinerary.

“I like Lisa’s chances to be holding the trophy after the final match,” said Gibbs.

David Shefter is a USGA Digital Media staff writer. E-mail him with questions or comments at dshefter@usga.org.