After Hannah Harrison’s freshman season with Washington State Women's Golf, she asked herself one simple question. What am I doing here if I am not playing good golf? Harrison had to sit down and talk with her parents. She remembers telling them she does not want to play golf anymore. She could not go on with it for another three years.
Harrison could not have seen this drift from the sport coming. Ever since she was in middle school, collegiate golf has been her goal. Yet being a division one golfer put a strain on her relationship with the sport. She did not perform as well as she hoped during the fall season and for the first time in her career, she felt performance anxiety on the course.
That freshman season, the team traveled to Arizona and during a practice round, Harrison’s nerves took over. She felt anxious standing over the ball. She felt scared to even hit it. Her miss was a left hook, something she would never hit on the range. After that round Harrison called her mom crying over the stress. A week later Harrison hurt her wrist.
The injury sidelined her for two tournaments in the spring. What felt like bad luck piling on top of her misfortune turned into a blessing. Harrison did not feel the same pressure while being sidelined.
“I have never really been someone to experience stress and anxiety like that in golf and I think that's what made me a really good player in junior golf,” Harrison said. “So when I went to college it was just like something I hadn't experienced before and I was trying my identity way too close to my sport.”
She realized how different her outlet from golf became. In high school, she had friends outside of golf. She did not go to school as a golfer. She realized the student athlete life swallowed her identity. All of her friends were athletes, she lived with athletes, she was surrounded by athletes all of the time. It felt like her whole identity became being a WSU golfer.
Harrison went into her sophomore season with one thing in mind–golf needs to be fun again. While the year went better than her freshman season, by the end of the season one of her best friends transferred and her head coach left.
With more player movement in the offseason and a new head coach, Harrison felt like a freshman again. Harrison just felt like she had gotten used to her surroundings, but the change messed with her mental state again. She felt like she played for the expectations set by herself.
That fall of her junior season Harrison did not qualify for any tournaments. She knew she could not play good golf unless she got out of her mental slump.
“The beginning of my junior year I was still so in my head I didn’t really give any coach or team the opportunity to have that kind of impact on me,” Harrison said. “But going into spring I went in with an open mind because I really wanted to play well and do the best that I can.”
That spring season, Harrison competed in four tournaments and had four top 25 finishes, including one in the top 10. She made sure to allow her surroundings to have an impact on her. First year head coach Kevin Tucker had one of the biggest impacts on her.
The thing that stood out the most is Tucker’s belief in his student athletes. On the course he does not worry about his golfer going out of bounds or into the hazard. He will advise his golfer to be aggressive and attack pins. Harrison said these things are small, but the reassurance adds up.
“Kevin completely changed my relationship with golf,” Harrison said.
“The first thing Kevin told me on the phone when I learned he was my coach was, ‘I want the number one thing everyone to do is graduate from WSU liking golf and having fun with golf,’” Harrison said. “I told him my last tournament you really did do that.”
Harrison started in every tournament during her senior season and maintained a mental space that far succeeded the low points in her career.
“My experience at WSU definitely wasn’t what I was expecting, “Harrison said. “I was expecting to play for my coach I was recruited by, but I really think that it ended in the best way possible. I wouldn’t go back and change anything.”