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Out for a drive
She stands 5 feet 9 inches tall and drives the ball more than 200 yards. And she's only 10.
Jasmine Braswell drove her way to the championship among 10- and 11-year-olds in the double-novice division of the Loudoun County Junior Golf Association (LCJGA) Aug. 4 at Sterling Park Golf Club.
Braswell bested a field of about 30 competitors of both genders, carding a 23 on a five-hole par-three course from the junior tees. She becomes the first African-American youngster to win the event in the five-year history of the LCJGA.
The victory comes amid Braswell's four medal-winning performances during July and August in nine-hole matchplay events in U.S. Kids Golf.
"I have high goals," declared Braswell, a golfer since age 5. She practices putting on a green in the basement of their Ashburn home.
"She's young enough, she has time," said Ted Simpson, golf pro at Algonkian Regional Park Golf Course and Braswell's coach since she was 7. “Right now, she's learning how to win. It depends on how much time she devotes to it."
When asked how she intends to improve her game, Braswell immediately responds, "Hard work and practice."
She comes from athletic stock. Her mother, Christine, was a competitive swimmer in high school, while her father, Roland, played Division I basketball at Northeastern University.
Roland Braswell serves as a source of constant encouragement to his daughter on the golf course and in the classroom.
"We really push the academics around here," he said. Jasmine Braswell, an A-B student, is a rising fifth-grader at Ashburn's Dominion Trail Elementary School. She likes the Universities of Virginia and Maryland as potential collegiate choices.
Though the athletic future of Braswell, who admires golfers Michelle Wie and Tiger Woods, is virtually impossible to predict at such a tender age, she already views her practice of the sport as analogous to succeeding in life's challenges.
"It's going to build good habits in me on the course and in school," she said.
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