Member Highlight: Sawyer Brockstedt

Sawyer Brockstedt enters eighth grade this fall with an epic ‘what I did this summer’ story: she nailed her most significant golf career win to date at the U.S Kids Golf World Teen Championship in July. She shot 67 in the final round to win by one, ending her third year playing in the U.S. Kids Worlds on a high note. “To go out like that was really nice,” she said.

Although the U.S. Kids tour is for youth up to age 18, Sawyer is now focusing her efforts on the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA), which will give her a leg up in a few years when she starts looking at colleges (definitely goal-oriented, she’s already eyeing Duke and Wake Forest). She also plays on the Hurricane Junior Golf Tour and Peggy Kirk Bell Girls Golf Tour.

Last weekend at the AJGA Junior Golf Hub Junior All-Star in York, PA, Sawyer qualified for the Notah Begay III Junior National Championship to be conducted November 15 – 17, 2020, which will be televised on Golf Channel.

An honor roll student and member of the National Honor Society, she has taken advanced coursework, founded her elementary school newspaper The RES Chronicle, and placed third in the 2020 Sussex County Science Fair.

Photo 1: Sawyer with her trophy for winning the World Teen Championship in July
Photo 2: Sawyer (middle) with fellow player and friend Ellison Lindquist, and sister and biggest fan Hudson Brockstedt

We caught up with Sawyer and her dad Chase while they were driving from their Delaware home down to Pinehurst to see what she’s been up to and how her summer is going.

What's your first memory of the game?
We were always around golf. As a family, we went to the club like every day. I started putting on the putting green and really got into the game.

You got your first set of clubs at age 6. What made you start taking the game seriously?
When I was 8, I started practicing more and just caught the bug. So I practiced every day and started playing in tournaments when I was 10.

What's the most important lesson you've learned to improve your game?
I work a lot on putting with my coach, on three-footers to get my stroke better and using wedges to different greens. I love the Dormie Club range because there's lots of different flags and I can work on a lot of things depending on what my swing is doing.

What gets you in the zone when you're teeing off?
When I'm warming up, I put my AirPods in and listen to music, mostly the Today’s Pop playlist on Spotify. Right before I tee off, I think about hitting the green and opportunities for birdies. Like my dad says, give yourself a lot of opportunities and some of them will drop.

How has the pandemic changed up your routine? What are your plans for school this fall?
Our course has been open the whole time [the family also belongs to Kings Creek Country Club], and I got more practice when school was closed this spring. Tournaments were cancelled or postponed March through May, so July and August were busy with everything getting pushed to now. We have a late start on September 14 with a hybrid model.

What’s on deck for the rest of the season?
My last U.S. Kids Regional in September, because it was postponed from March. After that, I have a little bit of a break until we wrap up in November, and then the Tournament of Champions in December. My favorite tournament is probably the Doral Junior Classic in Miami [where she tied for second in 2019]. I’m the defending champion at the [Junior] Honda Classic in January.

Do you have a favorite golfer?
Jordan Spieth. He's a really good guy, and the #1 nicest on tour. He's good at putting and I've been working on mine too.

Which Dormie Network courses have you been to?
We’ve been members since October 2018, and Hidden Creek is the closest to where we live. I’ve been to Dormie Club too, and my dad is going to Ballyhack in September.

What advice would you give to other kids that want to start playing?
Keep with it. I was on a slump for like a year and I almost wanted to quit. But that weekend I won a tournament and it kept me going. I never would have won Worlds or met a lot of my friends without golf. It's worth it in the end.

Additional reading: Sawyer’s World Teen Championship results, AJGA stats, Hurricane Junior Golf Tour stats.

Header image: (left to right) Kelly, Hudson, Sawyer, and Chase Brockstedt at the U.S. Kids Golf World Teen Championship
All images courtesy Chase and Kelly Brockstedt