Bryce Terborgh '26 Recruiting Profile

My third year on the Varsity Golf team is going great and I just completed the PGA Junior League Regional Championship at Bethpage Yellow. My name is Bryce Terborgh and I am 17 years old with aspirations to play golf in college at a competitive level. A competitive environment pushes me to do my best and as I navigate through high school, I have found what works and does not for me as an individual in order to grow and improve in my golf career and my academics. 

I greatly enjoy many sports and have played soccer, basketball, baseball, skiing and tried lacrosse. During 1st grade, I developed an ambition to become an ice hockey player. This is kind of ironic as I was born in Guatemala where there is likely not one ice rink!  After 8 seasons loving ice hockey and going as far as 14U Tier II (AA) Nationals representing Vermont with my State Championship youth hockey team, I made the Essex High School Varsity Ice Hockey team during my freshman year - and we won our Division I Vermont State Championship. While I was really proud of my hockey experience and the lessons that I learned in terms of leadership, sportsmanship, and coaching styles, I had found a new passion along the way - golf! Earlier that fall, I made the Varsity Golf Team (the only freshman), and could not deny my interest in making this the focus of my sports career going forward. I never thought in a million years that I would end up playing golf at the competitive level that I am at currently. My family never forced me into any extracurricular activities and were very supportive of my choices and goals during my early childhood. My family is very important to me because I can always fall back on them and know that they will be there in times of victory or defeat.  This foundation has helped me to excel and I do not take them for granted. 

Golf has interested me since my first lessons while in elementary school for which my grandparents signed me up. I found it mentally challenging and requiring an amazing amount of patience and perseverance, and physical stamina. It is quite different from ice hockey that requires bursts of energy and skills.  I joined our local PGA Junior League team at age 13 and went to Sectionals after making the Vermont All-Stars team just 6 weeks after starting to play golf a few times a week.  I recognized that I had some sort of natural ability that I should foster.  When the opportunity to tryout for the Varsity Ice Hockey team came around my sophomore year of high school, I decided that I would focus on my golf game year-round and forego joining the team.  One of the main reasons was that I wanted to be a balanced scholar and athlete.  I had challenged myself with taking the AP US Government and Politics class as a sophomore and wanted to be sure that I had time to study for this, plus biology, geometry, Spanish, English, and other electives. I made the honor roll two quarters of the 2023-2024 academic year and got a solid B+ in the AP course at the end of the year. Following the sacrifices and decisions that I made these last two years and the focus on my academics as well as athletics, I hope that you will consider me a strong candidate for both your golf program and your academic institution - where I plan to study business (accounting) or healthcare.