Taylor Hicks was ready to transfer from Penn State during her freshman year.

The rising junior broadcast journalism major has played golf since she was four years old, but quickly found that the competitive golf scene at Penn State wasn’t for her. She didn’t feel that Penn State’s co-ed club golf team would provide the opportunities she sought, so Hicks took matters into her own hands.

“I missed playing golf so much, and my parents were like, ‘You should build your own team. You should start a women’s team,'” Hicks said. “I was like, ‘You know what? Maybe this is God telling me this is my pathway to go. This is it.'”

Hicks began bringing Women’s Club Golf at University Park to life. She put posters in different halls, made an Instagram account, and started hosting meetings for interested girls. From there, the squad finally got onto the green.

“We started as a recreational club. We would just hold practices every Sunday. In the fall, we would have league formats so the girls could play against each other and just be able to have that community where they can just be like, ‘Hey, I’m going out this day; anyone want to join me?’ and feel comfortable saying that in a group chat,” Hicks said.

Hicks led that format for the club, but members said that they wanted to play against other schools, which Hicks wanted to do before even stepping on campus. The team presented to Penn State’s competitive club association and was accepted as one of the school’s competitive club teams. They will begin playing against other schools in the fall.

Club Secretary Anna Peles played tennis growing up. She hurt her shoulder in high school, which ultimately led her to switch to golf. She also looked for a women’s club team upon her campus arrival, and there was a Women’s Rec Golf team.

Peles and some others played through a torrential downpour in their first rounds of golf together. It was Peles’ first true experience with the other girls, and while it was wet, she wouldn’t change a thing.

“It was a hot mess. There was about an inch and a half of standing water on the greens, but it was just so much fun,” Peles said. “If that odd of an experience could be so much fun with a group of girls I’d never met before, I was like, ‘Okay, this can definitely go somewhere.'”

Nowadays, Hicks has 12 players who want to play competitively, but she and her cabinet will reach out to more people in the fall, hoping to find a few more.

While the team will start to compete, Hicks is still focused on retaining the recreational side of the club for the 20 girls who simply want to play golf for fun with their friends.

“With having a group of girls, I feel like it’s more inclusive, and they feel more comfortable, even as starting as a new golfer,” Hicks said. “We made sure that even if you just wanted to start golf, you’ve never played in your whole life before, you want to start? We’re going to give you the opportunity.”

One of Hicks’ main surprises in building the team is how much support it’s gained not only from girls interested, but also from the Penn State and State College community as a whole.

They raised over $6,000 earlier this year, which helps immensely given the costs of golf equipment, transportation, and tournament accommodation.

Vice President Sunita Schild has golf in her DNA.

Her mom played Division I at Penn State, her grandmother led a successful golf career, and she herself has played golf her whole life. She said that since the club is brand new, every cabinet member has to work multiple roles to make it work. Coordinating fundraising efforts and establishing the club itself were the club’s toughest challenges.

“I have learned the ins and outs of Penn State club sports and what it takes to be an established club sport, which is so much more complicated than I originally thought,” Schild said. “Not only have I learned how to time-manage myself, but I have also learned so much about managing a team and how to work with everyone’s individual needs and schedules.”

Hicks and the team will participate in four tournaments organized by the National Collegiate Club Golf Association in their first competitive fall. She isn’t worried about perfection. Hicks just wants the team to be able to compete and see her two years of hard work come to fruition on the green against other schools.

The team will rotate five members through each tournament and stick to the Pittsburgh, New York, and New Jersey area for the time being while it raises more funds.

These tournaments allow you to play against co-ed, men’s, and women’s teams alike.

“You don’t really know who you’re playing against, which is fine, but having our foundation as a women’s team where you’re supported by women is huge for us,” Hicks said.

The team hasn’t just found financial support. Women’s Club Golf at Penn State Harrisburg reached out to Hicks to organize a scrimmage, which made her and the team feel involved and seen early on.

The experience of building her own squad has made Hicks reflect not just on her college experience to date, but on her life.

“It’s been very overwhelming, but it’s been such an experience. I feel like I’ve grown as a person and as an individual, just being able to balance certain things and be able to continue to grow,” Hicks said. “This is my first time actually taking the lead on something, which is huge. But again, having so much support … is huge.”

Hicks maintained that while she thinks the separation of Penn State’s co-ed club team and women’s club team is better for all parties, she doesn’t want a distance between the two squads. Their missions are fundamentally different.

“You have your competitive team, but then you also become a resource for those who want to learn the game of golf and have no experience, and I want them to be able to learn from that and be able to feel comfortable in building their skills and playing out on the course,” Hicks said.

One of the club’s ultimate goals is to host its own tournament.

It has received immense help from the Penn State course’s crew and even uses their simulators in the winter.

“There hasn’t really been a club tournament for anyone hosted at Penn State in a long time, so they’re very interested. We’re very interested,” Peles said. “We just want to essentially show off our amazing Penn State golf community and have a tournament of our own and a little something that we run every year, a little tradition.”

Hicks put her personal dreams at the forefront of her college experience, but she didn’t create it just for herself. She wants to share her love for golf with any girl who wants to learn or compete right alongside her.

She took her own leap of faith, and it’s all paying off little by little.

“It’s just so rewarding in the end. You don’t care about how much time you put into it; it’s just like, this is where we need to be. This is the time that needs to be put in. This is what needs to be done, and look at where we came now,” Hicks said.