Connor Kiel '24 Recruiting Profile

Growing up, I played all the big 4 sports. Throughout middle school, I was introduced to competitive golf by my dad. He is a head golf professional at a Country Club. Watching him and spending time at the club made me fall in love with the game. I stopped playing football, soccer, and baseball throughout middle school and started taking golf more seriously while I continued playing basketball; where I play for the varsity team at my school. The connections I've made through sports, play a huge role in who I am today.

Golf has taught me a lot about myself, other people, and the real world. The game puts you in your place real quick, you don't deserve anything in golf. You have to be willing to constantly grind on your skills for weeks, just to see minor improvements. It makes you realize that everything is important, and you can't take anything for granted. From watching others and myself, I've come to the realization that if you want to improve at something, hard work is the only answer. I've always been one to push myself to be able to compete my skills to the best of my ability and I want to be able to attend a school that challenges me academically and athletically. I've been an A student all throughout high school, and will strive to continue that in college. My biggest strength in golf is my mental game. Going to junior golf tournaments you see a lot of bad attitudes, throwing of clubs, bad posture; I was lucky enough to have a dad who made sure I knew there was no place for that stuff. My mental game hasn't always been the greatest but around two years ago I started to improve it significantly. I'm at a point now where bad shots, holes, or stretches don't get to me. This year in competitive play there may have been multiple times where I would follow a stretch of bogeys and doubles, but also have stretches of under par. I'm a team guy, an energy guy, and want everyone around me to succeed.