In April, Louise McCulloch shot the best round of her life.
In June, the Wilmette resident and soon-to-be senior at New Trier got a scholarship offer to play golf for Northwestern. Later that month, she verbally committed to the Wildcats.
All of the success came less than four years after McCulloch started playing golf. She picked up the game as an eighth-grader at Wilmette Junior High.
“I turned the corner last summer,” McCulloch said. “I had a couple of low rounds, and I started thinking I could play in college. It was exciting and thrilling that I was capable of doing that. My dream always was to play Division I, but I was happy to go anywhere. To get the chance to play at Northwestern is amazing.”
McCulloch got hooked on the game after her father, Kevin McCulloch, took her to play at Wilmette Golf Club. Louise McCulloch still remembers the shot that hooked her for good.
“It was a 6-iron into a green,” she said. “That was the first one I ever hit well. That’s when I knew I loved the game because I wanted to repeat that feeling as many times as I could.”
Kevin McCulloch, a player since he was 12, said he never pushed his daughter into golf.
“After that initial exposure, she caught the bug on her own,” he said. “When she puts her mind to something, she’s capable of accomplishing anything.”
Two years removed from struggling to break 100, Louise McCulloch was New Trier’s best player as a junior. In 2014, she won the CSL championship and was the team’s low player at the regional tournament. At the Class AA state tournament, she tied for 18th to help the Trevians take third as a team.
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“Natural ability and athleticism can only take you so far,” said David Maslen, Louise McCulloch’s first golf instructor. “Then, you have to become a student of the game. That is what she is. She’s a motivated young lady.”
This summer has been Louise McCulloch’s best.
Earlier this month, she advanced to the match-play portion of the Women’s Western Golf Association’s National Junior Championship at Hope Valley Country Club in Durham, N.C. In what she called the biggest tournament of her career, Louise McCulloch won one match before losing in the second round.
On Wednesday, July 22, Louise McCulloch tried to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Sportsman’s Country Club in Northbrook. While she didn’t make the field for the tournament at the Portland (Ore.) Golf Club, it was a positive experience.
“It was a lot of fun,” she said.
That was because she competed at the same site as Sarah Cho and Kacie Komoto, two Northwestern golfers. Louise McCulloch said seeing those two there validated her place in the landscape of competitive golf. Cho is a sophomore-to-be and Komoto is a junior-to-be.
“I definitely thought about that,” she said. “It was cool to see them playing on the same course as me. I waved to them, and they waved back. I can’t wait to play with them year round.”
Kevin McCulloch said his daughter’s decision to attend Northwestern and play golf for the Wildcats doesn’t feel like the pinnacle of her career, even though it seemed like a dream for the both of them a few years ago.
“It’s a mile marker,” he said. “It’s a great milestone, but she’s not done yet. She’s still learning, and she has a lot to learn. This is a high point in her golf evolution, but it’s not the end of the line.”
Last summer, Louise McCulloch carded her best round to date, a 1-over 71 at the Wilmette Golf Club. She bettered that by one stroke this year by shooting a 2-under 70, her first round under par, at Deerfield Golf Club.
“That was so exciting,” she said. “It was so exciting to see all the hard work pay off, and it was a great way to kick off the summer.”
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