Florida State University Athletics
W. Golf: Williams, Seminoles Play At Wolfpack Match Play Championship
4/2/2023 10:04:35 AM | Women's Golf
RALEIGH, N.C. — Kaylah Williams’ career as a golfer began by swinging a set of plastic clubs in the kitchen of her home in South Africa soon after she learned to walk. When she conquered the kitchen, she moved on to a more complicated course — hitting the ball up the stairs and then back down. Eventually, that became too easy.
At age 14, Williams chose to focus completely on golf and began to train and compete for a chance to move to the United States.
Playing golf in South Africa is different from playing here in the United States, according to the Florida State sophomore. Once you become a top girl in South Africa, you start to go through the process to come to America.
“It’s just what you’re born into,” Williams said. “If you want to continue your amateur career and get better, see different competition, you come here.”
Williams and the No. 10 ranked Seminoles begin play Monday in the Wolfpack Match Play Championship at the Lonnie Poole Golf Course in Raleigh, N.C. The No. 12 ranked Seminoles are seeded second in the eight-team match-play tournament, during which each of the teams will play three matches. Florida State is seeded behind No. 4 ranked South Carolina. Also competing in the event is third-seeded Virginia, fourth-seeded Duke, fifth-seeded NC State, sixth-seeded Louisville, seventh-seeded Virginia Tech and eighth-seeded Louisville.
Florida State faces Virginia Tech in the first round which begins at 8:50 a.m. from hole No. 1.
Each team will play three matches. All 12 matches will consist of five singles matches, with one point being awarded for each individual victory. The teams will advance through a bracket style competition, with the championship match scheduled to begin at 8:50 on Tuesday.
Williams has played in each of Florida State’s four matches this spring and is enjoying the best season of her Seminole career. She finished in a career-best sixth place in Florida State Match Up at the Seminole Legacy Golf Course in mid-March.
For Williams, growing up playing golf against the same six girls at the top level was difficult in the beginning, but after playing them a few times she knew her competition and she needed more of a challenge, a new adventure.
“In America, once you’re at the top, it doesn’t mean you are going to stay there because there are always new people coming up.”
For Williams, playing golf hasn’t always the end goal.
She loves playing sports and being active. She played everything from tennis, to netball, to karate. The one sport that was always neck and neck with golf was field hockey. Ultimately, she chose golf for the individual aspect of the sport.
“I don’t mind team sports,” said Williams. “I think a team sport is very good for a person, especially the social aspect of it. That pressure of disappointing a team is much harder than disappointing yourself, because if you disappoint yourself, you just have a chat with yourself and move on. I’m an only child, so I’ve been alone my whole life, so I know how to deal with myself.”
While Williams knew coming to Florida State would be more of a team environment because of the support system from Head Coach Amy Bond and Assistant Coach Robert Duck, she knew it wouldn’t be a matter of disappointment, but rather a moment to learn from. Coming to America, Williams knew what she was looking for.
“I’m leaving home, I’m leaving everything behind, I wanted to find a place that would be easy to call home and somewhere people would accept me for who I am,” said Williams. “After speaking with the coaches and some of the players, it came down to how well they all treated each other. Coach Bond and Coach Duck also are a great support system that when things are tough, they are always willing to talk about it.
From then she knew Florida State was the place she could call home, saying “It has become that, my second home.”
Leaving home meant leaving her family and everything she knew. With a travel journey that has taken up to 43 hours with a 12-hour layover in Frankfurt, she only gets to spend Christmas with her family maybe once every two years. When she does get the chance to go home, she loves to be outdoors and go on little adventures.
In an ideal world, Williams would have all the important people in her life close to her and no technology.
“I could go a week without my phone and just go to the mountains and be absolutely okay with that.”
Some of her favorite memories are on the road trips she takes with her close friends.
“When I go home, I adore road trips,” said Williams. “”Back home they have a road called the Garden Route, that goes through the mountains and by the ocean, just to get away from everything. It’s beautiful.”
Much of what Williams has learned about being a good person, and the way she carries herself, comes from her role model, her mom.
“My mom is the strongest person I know. She has been through a lot, and the fact that she can still put things aside, and raise me to be the person I am today, is incredible.”
Teaching her valuable life lessons, while being able to fight, and get through tough situations has shown Williams that if her mom can do it then she can too.
Although golf was not something Williams and her mom shared, they didn’t need one specific thing to bond over.
“All we’ve needed to bond are those small moments,” said Williams. “We watched the television show Gossip Girl together, three years ago. Its stuff like that. We would watch it until 1:00 am, and just keep saying, ‘Just one more episode.’ I think it’s having that relationship of just pure quality time together. When life got too hectic for me, she was there. Sometimes I don’t even see my mom as my mom anymore, I see her as my best friend, and I can talk to her about anything in life.”
Williams also knows she couldn’t achieve the success to the level she has without the support of her father.
“My dad has given up so much for me to pursue my dream of playing golf,” said Williams. He has always been the person to tell me how things are, and that has made me stronger. He has been one of my biggest supporters; he is always there to talk or listen no time what time of the day it is.”
Even though Williams doesn’t have a specific golfer that she looks up to, she found her role model in her mom. She believes your role model should be someone you have watched and followed for a while.
“Once you’ve watched a person’s emotions and how they get through something, that’s someone worth looking up to. After seeing what my mom has gone through, and how she came out of it, she is the first person I call to get through my hard times. Hopefully one day I can be just as strong as my mom. Even though it will be virtually impossible, I’ll try my best.”
Williams finds it exhilarating to play the sport of golf. It feeds her desire for an adventurous lifestyle.
Although coming to America and playing for Florida State was an adventure in and of itself, she believes that some of her most rewarding adventures come from when she represented her home. Williams was chosen as a teenager to not only lead a team of women who were much older than her, some of whom had children, and she took that team and won.
She was the youngest captain to lead the Western Province team to victory with her best friend, who was only a few places behind her own ranking of sixth in the country, as her partner. They went on to beat the number one and number two in the country to win the tournament on an incredible shot on the 18th hole. Still holding this leadership role in May of 2021, and before arriving at Florida State, she led the team to win a tournament of 72 holes, playing a round of 18, then 36 and finishing with another 18 holes. The team won by a substantial amount, and she was the first and youngest to lead the team to win both of these tournaments.
“Having that achievement as the youngest person to lead the team to win, was one of the greatest accomplishments of my life, because it is kind of hard for a teenager to tell a grown woman what to do. The nicest part of it was I didn’t have to. All I had to do was sit there and give them inspiration and say, ‘this is the team that can do it, we have worked for so long, we’ve been so close so many times, we can do this.’”
If Williams wasn’t playing golf, she would love to be a doctor, but not just any kind of doctor.
She is currently studying psychology because she thinks it is fascinating to understand the mind. Specifically, she would like to study the minds of some of the most notorious murderers like Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. She likes the idea of a challenge, of trying to reveal why people do what they do.
“It must be the most exhilarating thing to be in a room with them. You have to be that good of a psychologist to find a way to get a real answer out of them. I would love to understand, I would love to be the one to crack them, to then hopefully save lives.”
Her adventurous nature and desire to do what most would fear doesn’t just stop when she travels home or is working on her education. Before a tournament everyone has their own way of calming their mind and getting focused. Williams’ way may not be the most conventional, but it works for her.
“Playing is supposed to make you free and less technical and that’s what I like to get out playing the day before a tournament.”
To feel free and relaxed Williams enjoys engaging in scavenger hunt games and murder mysteries.
Although these games are high intensity for some, and practice for a future career working in a hospital, it actually puts her mind at ease. To her, they are “mindless games.” She doesn’t like to think about golf, so the best way to not focus on it is to put all her energy into something that doesn’t affect her game.
“Golf is serious enough, so I don’t want to worry about it before I actually have to think about it.”
Once she finds herself on the green, after getting a good night’s rest, she is all in. She no longer has to distract her mind. Stepping on the green and holding her favorite club in her hand, her 3-wood, she is taken back to moment she held a club in her hands for the first time.
“Standing at the range for the first time, my dad put a club in my hands, even though the club was way too long for me, so I gripped it right at the bottom.”
In that moment, both she and her family knew this would be the one adventure that would last a lifetime.