By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

The first nine-hole round of Taylor Blazek’s career had some good and some bad.

At least that was the way she saw it.

The bad, her score was far from where she wanted it to be.

“I shot over 80. Yeah, it was rough,” she remembers.

The good?

The round immediately sparked her drive to want to become better.

She didn’t like that she wasn’t good at it.

It bothered her, so she began to work diligently.

With her father, Mitch, helping guide her development, her scores slowly started to improve.

The better she played, the more focused she became on sharpening her skills.

Now, just five years into her career after getting into the game later than most as an eighth-grader, Blazek is a steady standout on the course.

The Southeast High School senior spent the summer competing across various tournaments, including winning the championship at the Akron Good Park Junior Tournament, and teed off for her final prep season last week.

As a junior, Blazek was named the Portage Trail Conference’s Player of the Year and she became the first girls golfer in school history to qualify for the OHSAA State Championships. She placed 14th overall in Division II.

All while leading the Pirates to their third consecutive league title.

“She is a special kid, isn’t she?” Southeast girls golf coach Cindy Fesemyer rhetorically asked.

Fesemyer, though, is convinced that as well as Blazek is playing right now, her best golf is still waiting for her.

“You know, it is Taylor’s senior year and there are some emotions that go with that, and I understand because it is her final season here, but I told her that things are just beginning for her,” Fesemyer said. “This is not a time to be sad, she should be excited.”

Blazek’s parents, Mitch and Becky, own Lakeside Golf Course in Lake Milton, but she never spent time on the course.

Instead, she fell in love with basketball. However, while attending Jackson-Milton, the school was unable to get enough players to form an eighth-grade team so Blazek, out of curiosity, picked up a set of golf clubs and began playing her parents’ course.

And so her golf career had officially started.

She transferred to Southeast, found a group of welcoming girls golfers and a coach in Fesemyer that believed in her.

So did her father.

“My dad is really good, and he taught me everything I know,” Blazek said. “He made me want to keep going. I never wanted to quit. If I had a bad round chipping or putting, he would take me out the next day to work on getting better. He pulls out his chair, sits down and helps me work. He is my biggest fan.”

Blazek’s mother is right there, too. Especially at tournament time when she always packs a lunch filled with peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

“I love those things,” Blazek said.

These are just part of the memories that Blazek said she is so thankful the game of golf has brought into her life.

While competing at the state championships, winning league titles and earning top league honors are remarkable accomplishments and undoubted memories, Blazek said the road trips in the van with her teammates, laughs shared while walking from one hole to another and a collection of other small moments have had a big impact on what she will remember from her high-school career.

She credits Fesemyer for the program’s culture and willingness to embrace fun while also passionately competing to be the best.

“Winning makes things fun,” Fesemyer said, “but I have always believed that if you do things the right way, work hard and have fun along the way, things will fall into place and the winning will take care of itself. That’s what makes it fun. That’s what makes it special. You don’t have to trade one for the other. Everything can be happening at once and when you have players like Taylor, they make things easy.”

It certainly didn’t start easy for Blazek, but things are definitely taking care of themselves now.