Few have had a high school golf career as decorated as Sleepy Eye United’s Sam Price.
Price has been a conference Player of the Year four times, is a four-time Section 2A champion, a four-time All-Conference golfer, has five state tournament appearances and two All-State selections. Price holds the SEU girls golf record for low scores for both a nine-hole round (34) and an 18-hole round (75), and had the lowest nine-hole average (43.7) and 18-hole average (87.7) in the Tomahawk-Valley Conference this year.
Price adds one more award as she earns her fourth All-Journal Girls Golfer of the Year selection, most by any girls golfer, as selected by The Journal’s sports staff.
Price made her first state tournament as an eighth-grader, but she never imagined her career would become what it did.
Price had her best-ever finish at the Class A State Tournament this year, placing 11th and shooting a season-best 77 in the second round of the tournament at Pebble Creek Golf Course in Becker. Price saved her best for when it mattered most, despite a slow start to the season.
“I struggled all year to start,” Price said. “To finish off so strong was so rewarding and just to kind of end off the whole season and my career in general, it was nice to end with a bang.”
Price said getting back to where she wanted to be from the beginning of the season showed the kind of golfer she was.
“It shows that doing this sport is where you learn perseverance,” she said. “There’s so many ups and downs mentally and physically with this sport, so it definitely shows what golf brings to you and how it can develop your character.
“I just needed to start enjoying playing. I definitely put too much pressure on myself to start. I think that’s why I had some of those higher scores coming in at the beginning of the year. I kind of just told myself that I need to have fun and enjoy playing, then those scores started to get lower.”
Looking back at her career, Price said her favorite moments were when SEU was able to go to the state tournament as a team.
“Making it to state four years in a row was the best,” she said. “Especially that first year. It was the first time that the SEU girls program had made it to state, and most of us were pretty young, too, so we were excited for what was to come for the next years, and we did go to state for three years after that. That was super exciting.”
Price plans on attending the University of South Dakota in the fall, but will not golf competitively there, preferring to golf for fun from now on. To leave her high school career, Price credits both her own long-lived success and the team’s to the support that they’ve gotten from coaches and parents.
“Just the support through everybody,” she said. “We’ve had such good coaches all six years of being in golf. Also support behind all our parents, my parents especially are so supporting. They haven’t missed a single meet in five years for me, so that’s absolutely so much help. … Everybody is so supportive of the SEU program, and that definitely leads to a more successful program in golf.”