Since the age of seven, perhaps even earlier, Casey MacNeil has been chasing her golfing dreams.

Now 30 years of age, the Espanola native finds herself balancing between life as a teaching pro with Golf Sudbury, while somehow still finding time to work on refinements in her game.

Not yet willing to let the ultimate dream float away, MacNeil knows the window of opportunity when it comes to playing on tour — any tour — won’t stay open forever.

On-going motivation is not always easy to find, which made the December announcement from the PGA of Canada that MacNeil was being honoured as the 2024 Brooke Henderson Female Player of the Year both timely and very much appreciated.

“I am definitely trending up,” said the young woman who spent time at both Charleston Southern University and Chicago State University as part of a four-year NCAA career more than a decade ago. “I’ve been working hard the past few years. I still have the same goals in mind.

“I am kind of right on the doorstep and events like this certainly help with confidence and staying competitive.”

At three qualifying tournaments, including stops in Calgary and Vancouver, MacNeil would rank first among the teaching professionals competing with a host of other aspiring young golfers. A one-under par round of 70 posted at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley, host of the 2024 PGA Women’s Championship of Canada, stood out from the rest.

But when it comes to the game of golf, Casey MacNeil has always had a way of standing out from the crowd.

“I was a very athletic kid,” MacNeil said. “Sports were a little easier for me. My mom was into golf and I had siblings that played, so she would bring us out.”

Strength and above-average hand-eye coordination were all part of the package for the young talent, with MacNeil cracking the Team Ontario roster as a teenager, pretty much cleaning up in tournaments that were held in the North and proving to be more than a tad competitive even as she tested herself opposite the provincial elite.

A three-time NOSSA champion while representing the Espanola Spartans, MacNeil would eventually make her way south of the border, all while dealing with pretty much everything that entails.

“There were certainly some ups and downs, as you could imagine,” she said. “There’s a lot of players all wanting to go for the same thing — and at that level, nobody is not good anymore. But it was nice to have those kinds of facilities and access to the money they put into sports in the United States.”

Her college years opened the door to the challenges that are Cog Hill Golf & Country Club (Lemont, Illinois) and the fabled Pinehurst course (Pinehurst, North Carolina), both recognized as ranking with the elite of golfing venues in the entire U.S. of A.

Yet as she has come to know, post-secondary athletics are but a piece of the apprenticeship that golf has to offer.

“I think, as you get older, you realize just how important the short game is,” said MacNeil. 

“Once you can hit the ball a certain distance — which, to some extent, everyone can — then it comes down to the short game and the mental game, staying positive when things aren’t going your way.”

That wisdom sits with MacNeil as she clings to the hope for that one big break, a pursuit that must be tempered, to some extent, with the basic realities of adulthood and life.

“I am still very busy with the teaching side, with lots of lessons,” she noted. “Then I will take about half of the week to myself, to practice and train.”

These days, where MacNeil can be found stationed at Discount Golf, home to facilities that absolutely can do the trick, even for someone at her level of the game, when it comes to seeking constant improvement.

“It’s nice being outside and getting the feedback that grass provides, being out playing and doing more of the short game component,” said MacNeil. “But having the Trackman technology (used regularly by tour pros), you get to see the numbers.

“It can give you a lot of details when it comes to the analysis of your swing. There’s also a lot of cool things you can do with target practice and stuff. My swing is pretty grooved, so it’s more about just maintaining it, continuing to work on hitting your targets.”

The “pot at the end of the rainbow” target, for Casey MacNeil, would be a chance to crack the LPGA Tour. 

Capturing the Brooke Henderson Award certainly helps, building a belief that this is not an unrealistic goal, and one that is very much worth the time and effort that the Northern Ontario woman is devoting to her dreams.

Article by: Randy Pascal – www.sudbury.com