Virginia Golfer September / October 2015 | Page 40

MyTURN

by JIM DUCIBELLA

F

or 29 years, the Daily Press
in Newport News has
selected high school all-star
teams. During that time,
writer Lynn Burke said,
the newspaper has honored
maybe a dozen women golfers—certainly
never one as its player of the year.
Until now, that is.
In June, Emily Salamy of Jamestown
High School broke through the grass
ceiling, earning Peninsula golfer-of-theyear honors. Her mother gave her the good
news, which was, to put it mildly, shocking.
“I didn’t really believe it at first,” she said. “I
kept asking if she was sure. It was awesome!”
So were her credentials.
Last season, she averaged 76.10 for 11
high school rounds. In the state tournaments,
Salamy finished second—in the 4A boys’
division. In the girls’ tournament—there are
no divisions; every girl in the state is placed
in one pool—she finished sixth.
While that sounds disappointing, there
were extenuating circumstances. At midseason, Salamy hurt her back, but continued
playing. At the girls’ tournament, her
discomfort became so acute that when the
event was done, she told her father she
needed to see a doctor.
She ended up taking off a couple of
months, going to physical therapy, and
retooling her swing slightly to take the

40

Left: Salamy poses with
her coach, Doug Meredith.
Above: Salamy celebrates
with teammates Dan Kelly,
Will Bell, Matthew Shield
and Austin West.

stress off her back. She now says she is fine.
But if those statistics and that tiny bit
of background were all you knew about
Salamy, you’d be missing what makes her
special in ways that have almost nothing to
do with golf.
A Virginia State Golf Association member
who plays out of Kingsmill, Salamy was
conspicuously absent from the summer’s big
events, and her back had little, if anything,
to do with it.
Instead, she made mission trips, working as
a youth counselor with the Jeremiah Project
in Northern Virginia. She first went there as
a middle-school student and embraced the
religious and community-building aspects
of the project so completely that she returns
annually to work with attendees from the
seventh to ninth grades.
“It’s the best part of my summer,” she
said. “We help them with their relationship
with God and then we go and work on
people’s houses.”
She and her charges paint, build wheelchair
ramps and handle the smaller odd jobs that
many elderly or infirm people can’t manage.
“It really helps people and the kids get a big
sense of accomplishment from it,” she said.
Everything about Salamy appears beguiling.
Recently, she left for Rhodes College in
Nashville, Tennessee—enrollment 2,025—
carrying her 4.0 grade-point average and
advanced placement credits to a Division

V IRGINIA G OLFER | S EPTEMBER/O CTOBER 2015

III school that offered her an academic
scholarship.
Her other choice was Virginia Tech in
rural Blacksburg—enrollment 31,000—
Division I, the almighty Atlantic Coast
Conference and athletic scholarship
money out the kazoo.
Two elements may have contributed
to her decision: For the past two years,
Newsweek magazine has named Rhodes
the nation’s No. 1 service-oriented college.
Think Jeremiah Project.
In addition, Rhodes’ golf team has captured
the last two Southern Association titles.
“I’m still going to get that competitive
golf,” she explained. “And I’m also going to
have a lot of time to focus on my academics
and to have a social life and to do a lot more
things besides golf, which I think is important.
I’m going to get the three things I really want.
I decided I wanted that balance.”
One of Salamy’s greatest attributes has
been her ability to perform her best in the
biggest events. Asked how she deals so well
with pressure, Salamy said she disavows its
existence.
“There was a point in junior golf that I
realized that golf isn’t the most important
thing in my life,” she said. “There are a lot
more important things—friends and family,
other things. I know it’s not the end of the
world if I don’t win a tournament or I shoot
a bad score.
“In