{"id":34654,"date":"2024-11-04T10:16:11","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T15:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=34654"},"modified":"2024-11-14T11:34:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T16:34:00","slug":"notes-from-the-field-the-new-flag-bearer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/notes-from-the-field-the-new-flag-bearer\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes from the Field: The New Flag Bearer"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Anna Morgan \u201924 signed on with the Furman women\u2019s golf team in the fall of 2019, she understood she was joining a program whose alumni read like a \u201cWho\u2019s Who of Women\u2019s Golf.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the course of six decades, the program has produced two World Golf Hall of Famers (Betsy King \u201977 and Beth Daniel \u201978), an All-American who became president of Nike Golf (Cindy Davis \u201984), a 17-time winner on the LPGA Tour and top network commentator (Dottie Pepper \u201987) and a consensus National Player of the Year (Natalie Srinivasan \u201920).<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew Furman had a really good program and I was aware of its history,\u201d says Morgan, who grew up in nearby Spartanburg, South Carolina, and whose mother, Elizabeth Huddleston \u201993, is a Furman alumna. \u201cI wanted to go somewhere I could play competitive golf at the highest level and test myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan got her wish and much more, managing to leave her own indelible imprint on the program. She finished her career with eight collegiate wins, the most in Furman history and three more than the five career victories each posted by King, Daniel, Pepper and Jennifer Perri \u201902.<\/p>\n

She was named Southern Conference Player of the Year three times and the league\u2019s Female Athlete of the Year a record three times. She played in three consecutive Augusta National Women\u2019s Amateurs, arguably the most prestigious female amateur event in the world and qualified for the U.S. Women\u2019s Open in 2022.<\/p>\n

She was among 15 players to be listed on the 2023-2024 ANNIKA Award spring watch as the nation\u2019s top collegiate player. She also was one of 12 amateur women golfers invited to try out for the Curtis Cup team, another elite amateur event.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Anna Morgan \u201924. Photo by Owen Withycombe, Furman University.<\/p><\/div>\n

GOING OUT WITH A FLOURISH<\/strong><\/p>\n

Morgan\u2019s final season in 2023-24 was particularly impressive. She recorded seven top-five finishes in 11 events, including victories at the Lady Paladin Invitational, Landfall Tradition, Lady Puerto Rico Classic and Southern Conference Women\u2019s Championship.<\/p>\n

Morgan\u2019s stroke average over those 33 rounds was 70.1, the lowest in the history of the women\u2019s program. Her career stroke average of 72.1 is also the program\u2019s best. She was named a first-team All-American by the Women\u2019s Golf Coaches Association, making her just the eighth player in program history to receive first-team honors.<\/p>\n

Furman women\u2019s golf coach Jeff Hull says the program has been fortunate to bring in a special golfer every few years who rises to the highest level and keeps the women\u2019s golf flag flying high. Morgan is the most recent player to pick up the banner and carry it forward.<\/p>\n

She also fulfilled her role as an outstanding student, double majoring in communication studies and politics and international affairs and graduating with a 3.6 grade-point average.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to have somebody like Anna come in and set the bar a little higher,\u201d Hull says. \u201cAnd she\u2019s really done it the right way. She\u2019s a great player and she\u2019s fun to be around.\u201d<\/p>\n

AN ACE IN OTHER SPORTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Morgan is a great athlete, period. She started getting serious about golf when she was around 11. Before then, she most enjoyed being the only girl playing Little League baseball, where her fastball was her best pitch and she could hold her own with the bat, once clearing the bases with a grand slam.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got on the mound with my pink glove and threw the ball as hard as I could,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n

But when Little League officials told her it was time for her to move on to softball, that didn\u2019t interest her at all. So, golf and basketball became her primary sports. Once she entered Spartanburg High School, she turned her complete focus and competitive energy to golf.<\/p>\n

Hull says Morgan\u2019s fiery, competitive nature is always with her on the golf course, which can be a drawback in a sport that often demands Zen-like patience. But it\u2019s also what makes her the player she is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s both her strength and weakness,\u201d he says. \u201cAnna knows this, and we\u2019ve talked about it. But you never want to take away a golfer\u2019s personality. You want to help them understand and manage their emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan can agree with that. \u201cI see competition as a fun way to challenge myself and push myself to be better,\u201d she says. \u201cMy emotions can hurt me sometimes on the course, but more often they help me and boost my game.\u201d<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long for Hull to see that competitive behavior once Morgan arrived on campus. During her freshman year, she finished second to senior teammate Srinivasan at the prestigious Moon Golf Invitational and was unhappy with her performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, look, you just lost to the best player in the country, so don\u2019t worry about it,\u201d Hull says. \u201cBut she thought she should have played better.\u201d<\/p>\n

A TEST WITH THE BEST<\/strong><\/p>\n

The next step for Morgan is to test her game at the professional level, which is always the final step of the progression \u2013 and the most challenging one. No matter how good one is in college, competing at the professional level requires a higher and more consistent level of performance. That\u2019s what placed King, Daniel and Pepper in the golfing stratosphere. They combined to win 83 LPGA tournaments after turning professional, nine of which were major championships.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also true that the life of a professional golfer is not for everybody. Srinivasan, the nation\u2019s top player in 2020, tried the professional game for a few years before deciding it wasn\u2019t for her and enrolled in medical school instead. But Hull thinks Morgan has the game and temperament to make it on the highest level.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnna is one of the most natural and athletic ball strikers I\u2019ve ever seen, man or woman,\u201d he says. \u201cShe\u2019s long enough, and she\u2019s developed a good short game. She knows now she doesn\u2019t have to hit every green in regulation to shoot a good score. She also has a tremendous work ethic. She\u2019s the first one at the practice facility and the last one to leave. She\u2019s always doing whatever she can do to become better.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Morgan\u2019s part, playing professional golf is what she has dreamed of and she\u2019s ready to take that next step.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy playing golf because it\u2019s fun, and I think playing professional golf will be fun,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ll treat my preparation for tournaments like a job, but not the game itself. As soon as I see golf as a job, I think my career will be over.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anna Morgan \u201924 is the latest Furman women\u2019s golfer to leave her imprint on a storied program filled with generational talent and golf legends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":267,"featured_media":34756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3055,1963,3060],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2024","category-furman-magazine","category-notes-from-the-field-fall-2024"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/267"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34654"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35254,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34654\/revisions\/35254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}