In a matter of weeks, Washington D.C. will be Kendall Jackson’s new home. The 18-year-old from Houston is picking up first impressions this week in nearby Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she can’t believe the severity of the terrain beneath her feet. Columbia Country Club represents a crash course in downhill and sidehill lies.
Then again, when you grow up in South Texas, as Jackson did, everything feels hilly.
“Everywhere in South Texas is flat,” she said, “this area is not flat at all, oh my goodness.”
In the fall, Jackson joins the inaugural women’s golf class at Howard University. Thanks to COVID-19, she hasn’t even seen the campus yet, but she hopes to check that box across town later this week. Her first USGA championship start, this week’s U.S. Girls’ Junior, already brought a memento for her dorm wall. Every competitor received a signed letter from former president Barack Obama, a member at Columbia Country Club.
Embedded in his uplifting message was some sage advice: Keep it below the hole on No. 13.
“As soon as we get home, it’s going to be framed on the wall,” Jackson said, before thinking better of the placement. It belongs with her at Howard.
At first, Jackson thought this golf stuff was way too slow. She was 6 years old when she started with the First Tee of Greater Houston. Eleven years later, as a First Tee member she received various tee gifts from the U.S. Women’s Open staged at Champions Golf Club in Houston in December 2020. She wasn’t able to attend, but she perched a visor with the Champions logo on her head during her U.S. Girls’ Junior qualifier in Lafayette, Louisiana, last month.
Jackson fired a 73 at Oakbourne Country Club to take the only qualifying spot. Now that visor might just be good luck.
In those in-between years, Jackson slowly learned to love the game. Karate and martial arts initially competed for her attention, but then she saw the opportunities that golf could bring.
“At first, I’m going to be honest, I did not like golf at all,” she said. “First Tee itself was great, golf itself, I did not like it. It was boring, it was slow and I would rather be at home watching TV.”
In the transition from 8th to 9th grade, Jackson started going to the golf course every week. She was playing in a junior league and moving up through the levels. She kept playing tournament after tournament.
“Each time you get to the next level, more and more doors and more and more opportunities opened up,” she said. “When I got into high school, I was 100 percent focused. I knew I eventually wanted to go into golf wanted to go to college on a golf scholarship.”
Howard wasn’t always the school, though. Jackson fell in an awkward recruiting class. Many coaches weren’t sure how much room they’d have for Class of 2021 players like her because their schedule had taken COVID hits and older players were lingering with extra eligibility. The NCAA’s in-person recruiting ban also made it impossible for coaches to watch her in person.
“I knew I was a good player and had the ability and opportunity play Division 1 but it seemed like every time I reached out to somebody they either were full or they didn’t know how their schedule was going to look like because of 2020 or seniors coming back,” she said.
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Once she learned about Howard, and that the university was reviving its golf programs in the fall of 2020 with funding from NBA star Steph Curry, it seemed like all she heard about was Howard.
“Either a friend went there, somebody had a family member that just graduated, it was – we were hearing it very consistently,” she said.
Jackson liked head coach Sam Puryear’s thinking of recruiting talented but overlooked players. She didn’t get to meet him in person until he came to watch her compete in Dallas on June 1, but by then she had already read his book, “Diamonds in the Rough.”
“That allowed me to view him not only as a coach but as a person as well,” she said.
Jackson loves to conduct an interview or be interviewed. Family friends say she’s just got to write a children’s book someday based on her love of creative writing – everything from short stories to poems. So far she hasn’t been published, it’s just something she enjoys in her free time.
The plan for now, however, is to study business finance at Howard. She’s interested in learning about money and how to manage it.
Jackson goes back to two ladies she plays with locally, who are 78 and 80 years old. They’re proof you can play golf your whole life, and that’s one thing that inspired Jackson not only to stick with the game but draw others in – particularly young Black women. Tiffany Mack Fitzgerald, founder of Black Girls Golf, was another source of inspiration for Jackson. She had the opportunity to meet Fitzgerald two summers ago and has since taken it upon herself to mentor younger girls in the game – whether they’re just a few years behind her or as little as 5 or 6 years old.
“There’s not that many of us so I want to be able to show people and inspire people that you don’t have to just take this volleyball or basketball,” Jackson said, “that you can play golf as well.”
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