To Erin Misheff, golf is not just a sport; it’s a bonding activity for her and her father. Misheff and her father caddy for each other, while her mother is always cheering on the sidelines, never missing a match.

Misheff’s dad has played golf as long as she can remember, but he never pressured her into playing.

“If I had been forced into playing, I would have hated it. Instead my dad let me discover it in my own time, and that made all the difference,” Misheff said.

She didn’t intentionally get into playing golf. Misheff wanted to play volleyball her freshman year of high school but missed the conditioning due to a family vacation. That was when she first took up golf, and it became her life.

Over the summer, Misheff won the amateur division of the Women’s Ohio State Golf Association. She is the first person from Ashland University to win. The day of qualifying, Misheff went through an 18-hole qualifier in stroke play and qualified into the championship barrack. Misheff prefers stroke play to match play.

“I felt like this could be my year,” Misheff said, “I put in a lot of time and effort into practicing, but winning was surreal.”

Misheff replied that she has a very different mindset when competing in match play.

“Match play allows for the player to make more mistakes and still recover,” she said. “So I play aggressive and always assume my opponent is going to hit miracle shots.”

The summer before her junior year of college Misheff made it to the semi-finals, and the summer before her freshman year of college she won the First Flight division.

After winning over the summer, Misheff went to Arizona to train and loved it. She trained with a man who did a lot of stuff with martial arts. They did a lot of yoga to help improve Misheff’s distance when golfing. It was a huge step forward in her career. Misheff had a great spring season for Ashland.

“This is the biggest tournament I’ve ever won and it is the biggest tournament in Ohio,” she said.

She feels her golf game has been brought to a whole other level.

This year, Misheff’s goals are to place in the top ten in all the tournaments, break her current low score of 68, make it to Nationals as a team and place in the top five in Nationals. Misheff loves playing as part of a team, so she has big hopes for Ashland’s golf team this year.