- Christina Amoriello.
Christina Amoriello knew she wanted to be a golfer since she was a little girl. Five-years-old to be exact. She continued playing throughout her younger school days in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and into high school where she was team captain on her golf team and was named MVP each year.
Once she graduated, Amoriello knew right from the start that Western Carolina was going to be her college destination.
“I went on a couple of visits and they weren’t anything special, I told my parents that if I didn’t like this trip I was going to stay in Florida and I wasn’t going to play golf,” Amoriello said.
“They caught me in October and it was the first time I had been outside of Florida in the season and I was like oh my goodness, this place is beautiful, the people are so much nicer here than in Florida and I was sold,” Amoriello concluded.
She admits however, that her golf game has got worse throughout her college career, but that has not stopped her from playing the game she loves.
“My game has gotten tremendously worse since I’ve came to college. I used to average in the 70’s until I got to college and a lot of it has been I’m not a tall person so my swing arc is not big,” Amoreillo said.
She also states that there are some things about college golf that has contributed to her struggle.
“In college it’s really serious. Girls out there are no joke. Competitiveness is out there and distances are ridiculously longer.”
Late in her freshman year and into her sophomore year, Amoriello became ill and had to sit out her sophomore year with the team.
“Freshman year I went through a pretty big illness, so sophomore year I was just starting to get back in well-being and it affected my golf game pretty badly, so I had to kind of sit a season out just for the fact that I couldn’t even compare to the other girls on my team,” Amoreillo said.
She has bounced back however and is currently a senior who plans to graduate in May of this year. She was kind enough to give some advice to future golfers.
“The biggest part of golf is that I don’t care if you can hit the ball or not, you have to be mentally stable and you need to understand that you will have days where you want to quit, but just be happy and have fun with it.”
Amoriello acknowledged that she will not try to become a professional golfer when she graduates, but applauds her current and former teammates who wish to do so.
