Virginia Golfer September / October 2014 | Page 27

Junior Golf Spotlight

Self-Reliance Buoys Brooks
Fueled by increased autonomy and resulting confidence,
northern Virginian Shannon Brooks has enjoyed a
breakthrough season | by LISA D. MICKEY

Shannon Brooks has
progressed in the game due
in part to a renewed mindset.

STEVEN GIBBONS/USGA PHOTO ARCHIVES

T

he process of finding her
own way has taken on a
new meaning this year
for Shannon Brooks of
Vienna, Va.—literally and
figuratively.
When the teen got her driver’s license this
spring, parents Jackie and Robert Brooks
allowed their daughter to drive herself to
practice. And when it was time to compete in
the AJGA Junior at Bethesda, held Aug. 18-21
in Bethesda, Md., the rising high school senior
was given the green light to drive herself to
Maryland to compete in that event, where she
posted a wire-to-wire eight-stroke victory.
“Her mom and I felt it was important to
let her find her own way,” says her father.
“We were probably more scared than she
was, but we wanted to let her take complete
responsibility for her golf and learn how to
coach herself.”
And by the looks of things, Brooks has
figured things out quite well this year.
By late August, she was ranked No. 31 in

w w w. v s g a . o r g

the American Junior Golf Association’s Polo
Golf Rankings. She’d also won the AJGA’s Jos.
A. Bank/David Leadbetter Junior Championship in early August, and posted four other
top-10 finishes in AJGA events.
Through her AJGA ranking, Brooks also
qualified to compete in the 2014 Wyndham
Cup, an annual event that brings together
the nation’s top 40 girls and top 40 boys for
an East versus West team match play event.
Brooks was 3-0 in the matches conducted
in July.
She and partner Anna Newell of Florida
defeated a pair of Texans 2 and 1 in the
first day’s encounter, including one player,
Lakareber Abe, who advanced into the round
of 32 at the 2014 U.S. Women’s Amateur
Championship. Brooks and Newell won
their second day match 5 and 3 over Abe
and Kristen Gillman of Texas, the 2014 U.S.
Women’s Amateur champion.
And in her singles’ match, Brooks registered a 1-up victory against this year’s U.S.
Women’s Amateur Championship semifinalist

Hannah O’Sullivan of Arizona. Also in July,
Brooks reached the round of 16 at the U.S.
Girls’ Junior Championship, where she lost
in 19 holes to eventual runner-up Marijosse
Navarro of Mexico City, Mexico.

FAST TRACK TO GROWTH
BY TAKING OWNERSHIP
Clearly, Brooks’ level of play was rising as her
confidence accelerated along the freeways of
northern Virginia and beyond.
“I’ve had a good summer and it’s been
better than I ever would have expected,” says
Brooks, who turned 17 on Aug. 27, and will
be a senior this fall at James Madison High
School in Vienna. “I’ve grown a lot smarter
with course management, and I’m playing
really solid golf.”
But that didn’t just happen. According to
Jim Kardash, her swing coach of nearly eight
years, Brooks’ 2014 performance is the residual effect of the work she put into her game in
the off-season leading into this year.
“She’s very gifted hitting the golf ball, but
she’s really learned how to play the game,”
said Kardash, the owner and PGA director
of golf at Arundel Golf Park in Maryland.
“She’s a very disciplined worker, and what
you’re seeing now is the culmination of the
work she’s put in.”
Brooks made a commitment last winter to
ramp up her preparation heading into 2014.
She started working out, watched her nutrition, worked more intensely with Kardash, and
prepared all aspects of her game for tournaments. She also tried to focus better on her
course management and improve her putting.
Brooks already knew she could go low. After
all, she recorded her career-low score of 64 at
age 14 at the 2012 Peggy Kirk Bell Girls’ Golf
T Richmond Classic. That round included
our
nine birdies.
But a real turning point this year came
when she held her own against the nation’s
top-ranked players at the U.S. Girls’ Junior.
Brooks was the qualifying medalist in the
championship’s sectional qualifier in Richmond in early July, but she headed to the
event with limited experience in a match play
setting. By the end of that head-to-head week,
there was new gas in her tank for the rest of
the summer.
“It gave me the confidence to play so well
in that round of 16 match because my opponent was one of the stronger players in the
(continued on page 39)

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 | VIRGINIA GOLFER

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