NEISD golf team learn life lessons

Fifteen-year-old Nayshla practices her swing a Ronald Reagan High School’s golf facility.

She said her dad bought her first pair of plastic clubs from HEB.

“I’m actually from Colombia. At the golf courses in Colombia, it’s only for the rich people, the wealthy people. When I go over there, there is a lot of crime going on and I think it brings a lot of peace to me when I see other people playing golf,” she said.

The sport has been going strong at Reagan since the school’s opening, in 1999.

Head golf coach Bailey Furgeson said she always has aimed to help students reach both their athletic and academic goals.

“I do have one girl who has asthma and she never considered herself to be a runner. She now finishes first in our varsity workouts and she is so proud of herself. She is also in the special needs department,” she said. 

Furgeson said she fell in love with the game at a young age.

“I had a super bad speech impediment when I was growing up and was allergic to grass and had asthma, so there weren’t a whole lot of opportunities to play other sports. Golf had an individual aspect to it that I was going to get out of what I put into it,” she said.

Nayshla said she’s thankful to be on the green with Coach Furgeson and that a lot of hard work and commitment can be achieved just by playing it for a couple of months.

“I’m very grateful to her. Many people see golf and say ‘oh, it’s not a sport,’ but she has made me realize there is so much to the sport, even the own players don’t know about it.”

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