(Posted 6:30 a.m., Sept. 11)
Colonel By grad enjoying life on the links at Florida university
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

Former Colonel By Secondary School student Breanne Williams is about to attend her second year at Webber International University in Florida on a golf scholarship. File photo

Orléans native Breanne Williams can hardly believe her good fortune. A year ago she was getting ready to attend her first year at Carleton University.

An avid golfer she had lowered her handicap to 15 the year previous and was hoping to lower it even further to try and land a scholarship south of the border.

Just prior to the end of August, however, she scored a 79 at an event on her home course in Rockland. Bouyed by how well she had done she went home and decided to start e-mailing resumes to several American universities mostly in Florida and Texas.

“Someone had told me that the school’s start putting their teams together early in the year for the following year,” says Breanne.

Within a couple of hours she started receiving a handful of responses and to her surprise some of them were interested in having her transfer in January. Needless to say, Breanne never got to got to Carleton.

First, she had to decide on which offer she should accept and ended up picking Webber International University in central Florida which is one of the top business schools in the United States.

Besides the school’s reputation, Breanne chose Webber because of its proximity to Haines City where her brother, who is an excellent golfer in his own right, played a tournament on the university’s home course.

Her family has also been going to Florida every Christmas, so in other words, everything fit.

Breanne first started playing golf when she was 14-years-old. Both she and her mother took up the game at the same time.

“I didn’t like it at all. I wanted to quit after the first year. I just didn’t get it,” says Williams.

Fortunately, Williams had a friend who often went golfing with them and who wanted to keep golfing so she kept golfing too. In September she posted the second lowest score among the female competitors at the National Capital East Conference Golf Tournament with a 103.

Her game improved slightly the following summer to the point where she didn’t want to quit anymore and that fall.

It was during her third summer on the links that everything started to come together for the young golfer. Despite not taking any lessons she lowered her handicap from 30 to 18.

Williams kept improving through the summer of ’04 and scored an 86 at the high school tournament in her final year at Colonel By. At about the same time she started thinking about the possibility of getting a scholarship to play golf south of the border.

“I talked to a few people I knew who had gotten scholarships and they told me that I needed to get my handicap even lower,” says Williams.

To that end she practiced every chance she could last spring and summer and played almost every day. The hard work started to pay off almost immediately. She was the only female member from the Outaouais Golf Club to make it to the final round of the Ottawa Citizen Lady Amateur Tournament and wound up finishing 28th. She was the youngest girl competiting.

A few weeks later she finished third at the Junior Girls City and District Tournament. But the tournament that made her finally decide to go for it was the Ray Haines Fun Tournament at the Outaouais. She shot a 44 on the front nine and then 35 on the back nine for a 79. It was the first time she had ever broke par over nine holes. In fact, she could have easily shot a 34 on the back nine, but she was so nervous on her final birdie attempt she left her three foot putt several inches short.

The final nine holes was all the motivation she needed to start sending out her resumes and the rest is history. And while she's not on a full ride scholarship at Webber, the cost is about the same as it would be if she had gone to Carleton.

As for her golf game, Williams injured her wrist during her second tournament and ended up playing hurt the rest of the year. The sore wrist also forced her to change her swing and not for the better.

It wasn’t until she came back to Ottawa last spring and started working at the Orléans Golf Academy on St. Joseph Blvd. that she met an instructor with the Danielle Nadon Golf School who started to get her swing back to where it was.

Once again the results were immediate. Playing in her second year at the Ottawa Citizen tournament she finished 14th out of 111 golfers after shooting a 76 during the final round on the Talon course at Greyhawk.

She’s now back in Florida preparing for the start of the collegiate golf season which gets underway next week. Webber International is part of the Florida Fun Conference which is midway between Division II and Division III.

“I’m really excited. I’m really looking forward to having a good year,” says Williams who as a sophmore is the veteran on the young seven member team along with her friend and fellow sophmore Carrie Rowe. She’s also the only Canadian on an otherwise all Flordian team.

Asked what other budding young golfers might learn from her experience, Williams simply says they should go for it.

“I did it because I wanted to see if I could do it. I wanted to see how far I could go,” says Williams who is another shining example of what happens when talent and opportunity.

(This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our local business partners.)

Return to top

<>Return to Front Page