I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve seen written by D3 athletes all over the nation on why Division 3 athletics are so great. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of D3 sports, but I don’t think those previous writers have expressed to their audiences what it’s like to actually be a part of a Division 3 team.

After our last tournament of the season ended in Kentucky 2 weeks ago, as we were packing the van to head home, my coach said to us, “Guys, we have the weirdest, and most dysfunctional team in all of division 3, but I wouldn’t want to coach any other team.” No one can quite explain how all of our personalities meld together to create this group of 10 individuals who, on a 6-hour bus ride, re-created the Harry Potter puppet theme song. (yes, that actually happened) From the day we move back to campus, until the day after the last tournament, we spend roughly 28% of those 57 days together. That’s 15.96 days in total. That’s a lot of time. It’s hard not to let your weirdness come out of the woodwork when 10 of us are crammed into a 13 passenger van with golf clubs, push carts, duffel bags, and the like.

Unlike many college sports, golf has a split season. Our main season runs from the end of August to the middle of October, and then we have an off-season through the winter, and we pick up again around Spring Break in mid-March. So while the end of my Fall season wasn’t really the end of my collegiate golf career, it was the end of the majority of it.

Golf is a funny game. It is as much an individual sport as it is a team sport, which could potentially serve as a recipe for disaster. If you get too many girls who are too caught up in themselves and who don’t play for their teammates, your team isn’t friends first. My team is family first. Friends second. Teammates third. Golfers fourth. I have learned in my 3 and a half years of playing collegiate golf that there are few teams who have the same tight-knit bond that we share. Maybe it’s because other teams don’t prank call each other, or dump buckets of ice on each other, or celebrate a bad round with ice cream together, or play odds every chance they get. (One time, I lost odds and had to eat a spoonful of butter… not fun.) Or maybe it’s because we are a family. A Titan family. It is experiences and memories like these that make our team all that it is.

So, to my teammates and coaches, past and present, I could never, in a million years, express all that you mean to me, and the ways in which you have shaped my life. But I can say thank you. Thank you for all of the support you have given to me, and to each other. Thank you for providing a safety net to fall back on when disaster strikes (and when I made an 11 on a hole). Thank you for being the providers of some of the most hysterical moments, and the creators of some of the most unforgettable memories.

TGOE (and HYLG) until the day I die