By John Tranchina

For Dawson Branstetter, it’s all about his determination to do the extra work to keep improving.

The Enid freshman has only been playing golf competitively for a few years, but he has put in the time and earned first-bag status on Enid’s golf team. 

“I like to see when I go out there and show that I’m a freshman out there putting in the work to be a first bag on varsity,” Branstetter said. “I started about two or three years ago, about seventh grade is when I kind of got into it. I practice every day, from about 3:00 to about 7:00, and I go out there on the weekends, I’m always playing full rounds of golf. And I also do Junior PGA tournaments on the side, so those are just extra helpers, just to get my name out there and everything.”

Lately, Branstetter has been specifically focusing on trying to improve certain aspects of his game.

“My short game, putting and chipping,” he said. “That’s been my big misses at the tournaments, so I’ve been working extra hard at that.”

He used to play basketball, but as he began to get more and more into golf, he gave it up to concentrate on improving on the course. It was just something he ended up liking after some family members got him to try it. 

“My family, my grandparents, they all played golf and I went out there a couple of times and just kind of had the hang of it, so I decided that it would be good to start golf and I joined the seventh grade middle school team,” Branstetter said. “And I wasn’t real good at the time, then I got into it some, practiced, got some lessons and continued to take lessons and it’s helped me out a lot.”

While he doesn’t play any other sports, Branstetter is involved in a couple of other activities at Enid.

“I help out with Fellowship of Christian Athletes, FCA, and then also, I’m in Platinum E Club, kind of through the school, it’s a community service club,” he said. “Each month we get together and we usually have a project, whether that’s donating some money to help out with buying something for people that can’t afford it, or just getting clothes or going around helping people, maybe picking up trash on the road or something. It’s a good time, it’s a good role to learn how to be a leader.”

And even though he’s just a freshman, he has been taking on a leadership role this season for Enid, being in the first bag position.

“I think I’ve been putting up some pretty good scores and rounds and I’m always confident of getting my players to shoot good out there,” Branstetter said.