Meghan MacLaren is the newest No Laying Up Young Hitter!
Meghan MacLaren, our newest Young Hitter, will be teeing it up this week at the Casino Del Sol Golf Classic in Tucson, AZ. She will be competing against fellow squad member Lakareber Abe while Lauren Coghlin enjoys some much deserved beach time while competing in the Lotte Championship out in Hawaii.
We could not be more excited to have Meghan join the Hitter ranks! Not only because she is awesome at golf, but her written work provides a fresh perspective to the game we all love. If you want to checkout more, please visit her website at meghanmaclaren.com and follow her on social @meg_maclaren - Cheers
No Laying Up
By Meghan MacLaren
So, I’m Meghan. Like you, reading this (probably), I’m more than a little bit addicted to the game of golf. Despite my constant dissatisfaction with this sport, I count myself incredibly lucky to call it my profession.
I have been playing for pretty much as long as I can remember, thanks to a pretty talented family - my mum and dad have both played off low single figures for most of their adult lives (as she’ll be reading this, it’s worth saying that my mum is the lower of the two). My sister, five years younger, actually got all the talent in the family, but maybe luckily for me she decided she had better things to do with her life then let hitting a little white ball around for a few hours a day dictate her mental health.
One thing I’ve come to appreciate since I started writing about golf (usually using more words than necessary at www.megmaclaren.com) is its collectiveness. Its ups and downs may not twist their way around all of your thoughts with quite as much intensity as they do mine, but every one of us that plays - at whatever level - shares in some of its unrelenting mystery. That thing that compels us to absent-mindedly practice our swings anywhere we can see our refections; and seethe at Rory for not practicing his wedges more (even though I’m sure he does); and convince ourselves that we’ve found something right at the end of our round… it afflicts us all.
I happen to do it on a professional scale. And I want to reach the very pinnacle. I’m starting my 2021 season on the Symetra Tour, with the intention of getting my LPGA card. (Like about 300 other very talented people). I’ve played the majority of my career so far (2017-present) on the Ladies European Tour, where I have been lucky enough to win twice. Both times in Australia, possibly my favorite country on earth (TimTams and brunch and coffee and Royal Adelaide, anyone?) - unless I’m counting Newcastle, home to the football (soccer) team that drives a stake though my heart every weekend.
The LET is a wonderful place, and it’s brilliant to see it starting to grow in the way its players and staff deserve. Keep your eye on it this year - the women’s game is deeper than I think anyone realises. That’s another thing I’m passionate about - bringing light to the realities we often face as female professional athletes in a still male dominated world. This partnership with the No Laying Up crew excites me for that reason - they are fans, like the rest of us, but they go out of their way to keep learning and educating themselves, as we all should.
Golf means different things to everyone that plays it, but sharing those things is what connects us. I love it so much that it becomes a need. I love the breakthrough that comes after hours of frustration on the range; only the blisters on your hands knowing the effort required to reduce some trackman number or another. I love those seconds where only you and your golf ball exist, as it flies towards the flag on a par three, the silence asking whether you’ve got the right distance. The satisfaction when you have. There are few things I love in life more than knowing a putt is going in before it does.
Hopefully I can share some of that with you over the next few months.
Here’s to golf - the major winners and the Monday qualifiers, the distance debates and the island green controversies (peninsula), the Saturday morning four ball and the staff across the world who keep it all from falling apart.